Sand Soldiers
by Rainbow Ninja Mizuki
Summary: Two sisters from the Middle East end up involved in the war, something they're more used to than any teenagers their age should be and catch the optics of some bots. Hide/OC Sides/OC with cameos of UlurNaga's characters randomly. Violence and possible lem
1. Chapter 1

**AN:/ I really shouldn't be writing this, but I'm going to anyways. I have several other stories I have to write, but I don't think I'm going to be touching any of them for a while, so you should enjoy this. This story was written after I read UlurNaga's story PRIMARY MECHANISMS. The woman is a goddess with a keyboard. There are going to be some appearances of her OCs – Tessa will be more frequent than her brother, Aaron, niece, Lucy, and her dad **_**might**_** make an appearance later, I'm not sure – all with her permission, I swear, so don't try and kill me for using OCs I don't own, because I'm as big a fan of hers as you are.**

**You don't have to read it to read this story, I'm going to **_**try **_**not to have **_**too **_**many spoilers of her fic in here, but there are certain parts I just have to have Selena and Serena stick their noses in, but I would suggest reading it just based on the fact that it is, by far, the most well-written, inventive, and original fic I've ever read. Much respect to UlurNaga.**

**I own nothing, not Ironhide, or Optimus, and I don't have to deny owning Tessa, cause she's not in this chapter.**

People think the Middle East is the crappiest place in earth, what with the worn-torn nations, the terrorists, and deserts, and the temperatures that do make it possible to fry and egg on a sidewalk, believe me, I've had to do it once or twice. Still, that wasn't what made it so bad. The war torn towns meant that, if you wanted to be left alone, people fucking left you alone, the terrorists never bothered you if you were able to yell perfect scriptures from the Quran at them and, at least, pretend to be Muslim, and that whole, frying-an-egg thing really helped when you couldn't get the matches to build a fire. None of that was the reason why I hated being stuck in the Middle East.

That would be my job.

It's not just my job, mind you, but my sister's as well, my younger sister, Serena. We'd been doing it for years, as long as we could remember, though, from what we'd been told, it hadn't always been like that.

See, my sister and I are nimble. I don't mean just fast footed. I mean, we can run up on a tank, destroy its guns, nat gav systems, and, sometimes, the tank itself, before the drivers ever realize they'd seen our shadows in the camera, a skill that comes in handy when you make a living from guerilla warfare.

Still, my sister and I had rules, a code most of the others in our profession had given up after their first kill. We don't go after innocent, American troops, too big a chance of bystanders or refugees getting hurt, and we NEVER went after normal caravans, who had enough to worry about with the other pirates and thieves running about.

Which was why I was so furious with Tyson, another "monkey" as the locals called us, when I saw him and some of his little goons targeting a caravan as it left town.

I can't stand when people pray on the weak, the reason I so willingly do most of my work, but I also have NO control over my emotions, so that minute I made the decision to remind Tyson that caravans that came through this town were under protection, Serena knew.

"Just once," she said, getting up from the table we'd been having tea at, "I'd like for you to see someone in trouble and NOT start a fight. Don't leave them to die, but don't leave the other guy with a bullet either."

Nodding to her to put her seatbelt on as we got into my old truck, a Toyota, as I knew those things are unkillable, I started to drive behind the caravan. "We'll be in and out in a few minutes," I promised, kissing her on her forehead through her black bangs. "Those are Americans," I said, pulling up behind one particular truck. "Do you really want to risk them calling a bunch of soldiers to the village?"

Serena frowned and began to put, her younger age beginning to show. "I know. I know." she crossed her arms and flopped back into her seat. "I'll be a good, little guerrilla soldier."

"That's my girl," I said, watching the cliffs next to me for any sign of a shadow among the brown rocks that littered the skyline.

"They won't attack for a while," Serena observed, "It's too close to the village. They could make it back before they could get all of the loot. They'll wait another few miles."

I frowned. I didn't like waiting. It bothered me. When things were exactly as they were when you made a decision, nothing changed, it was the right decision, but things could change over time, even the short amount of time it would take for the caravan to get far enough away from the village for an attack. It can only take two seconds for someone to die, and that's a pretty big change.

I'd seen a caravan like this before, but they were transporting cars at the time, not soldiers. There was a large, blue truck. It looked like a Peterbilt 379, I couldn't tell any more than that. It had a fire paint job that was cracked and chipped from the rocks and dirt ramming it angrily. It was pulling a large, white box behind it, probably full of ammunition and supplies, a theory that Tyson was probably working off of when he chose his victim for the day anyways.

That truck was surrounded by a series of tanks and other army vehicles, really not helping if their intention was to remain inconspicuous. Most of the men inside we're hidden by the tinted windows on the sides, but I was sure that, had I been able to look inside, they would have been, mostly soldiers, maybe a mechanic of two for the trucks.

It took a while, but, eventually, Tyson and his gang made their move, leaping onto the top of the supply van with a grace I normally respected and agility that I never needed to envy. "Here we go," I said, bouncing over so Serena could take the wheel.

The minute I knew she had a handle on things, I was on the front end of the Toyota, my legs bent in my baggy pants, ready to leap at the ladder in front of me. Once I was sure they weren't going to turn, I threw myself onto the ladder, my gut clenching as it rammed into one of the steps on the ladder.

Shaking my head, I fought to keep down my lunch as I began to climb the ladder up to the roof where Tyson a two goons were arguing fiercely over something.

"Tyson!" I shouted, more because of the wind than anything else. "Get off the caravan."

Tyson growled and stood in front of me. "Leave now, little monkey. This is bigger than your catches."

Most people would have been afraid. Tyson was a big man, with muscles fighting on top of muscles on top of muscles. He could bench press my truck if he wanted to, and had a mean attitude. He was dark skinned, darker than me, with big lips and a huge nose that was malformed from being broken in so many fights. He had a small crew, maybe five or six people working under him, and was well-known for not caring who he worked for as long as he got paid. If I wasn't careful, I'd end up in the, I-got-in-the-way-and-died pile of people he'd killed, a large pile from what I'd heard.

"You know my rules, Tyson," I said, not the least bit afraid. When you face down entire tanks at the age of ten, one single man is hard to fear. "They came from my village. They get safe passage until they get to the next one."

"They do not pay you for this protection," Tyson argued, probably trying to win more time for his people who were already in the truck. "Let us have them. You do not need supplies in your village."

Stepping towards the latch at the top of the truck, where he and three other men stood, I walked right up to him, my face leek with his chest, but looking up at him, probably resembling a five year old glaring at their father. "Leave. The caravan. Alone."

Before he could speak, a cry was heard from the hole below us. "Demon! They are demons!" The two men scrambled out of the truck fearfully, both shaking as they began trying to shove one another through the hole, or pull them down so they could get out first.

"What are you talking about, you fool?" Tyson bellowed, yanking them up with just one arm. "They are just cars, dammnit!"

Before either minion could answer, though, a shot rang out, hitting one of the men. Not even bothering looking for where the bullet had come from, I ran the length or the truck to see the Serena had been forced back by the heavy fire from the other trucks surrounding the supplies. No matter how far I thought I could jump, I couldn't have possible made it to the hood of the Toyota.

A bullet whizzed by my face, scratching the sensitive skin there as it grazed me, and I quickly ducked and laid on the roof of the truck, making myself as flat as possible. I saw three of Tyson's men fall off the truck as they were shot. I slithered my way to the hole, deciding, just like Tyson, that the possibly bulletproof truck would be safer.

Before I could properly land onto the floor, Tyson gripped my ankle with a bone crushing force and slammed me down, my back smashing into what felt like the much reinforced hood of a very hard car. I bit my lip and fought the need to cry out as the pain shot up my spine. Tyson was a bully, and all bullies picked on people because they loved to hear them scream. There was no way I was giving him the satisfaction.

"You bitch," he screamed, yanking me by the same foot and pulling me so I fell off the hood of the car. "I told you to stay out of this! They were MY quarry!" he let go of my leg to hit me with his fist, and that was his mistake.

You don't get nearly as far as I have in life without being able to fight off guys like Tyson on a daily basis, and I was itching for a fight, what with all the adrenalin running through my system. The minute I saw his fist come too close to me to stop, I rolled quickly to the side, climbing on top of the car's hood, nearly jumping in surprise as it rumbled underneath me, as if to tell me to get off.

Ignoring the warning, I waited until Tyson had recovered from his debacle with the floor and turned his fists towards me again before I pulled the hood up, cackling maniacally as he yelled in pain, seeing that he hadn't even dented it. 'Damn,' I thought, climbing off the hood to sneak to the other side of the car, which I now realized was more like a truck, 'What did they make this thing out of and where can I get some?'

Before I could keep going on that track, I saw Tyson's shadow came up on the other side of me, followed by his voice. "The people who want these cars are very rich," he said, sounding like the serpent in Eden. "With my team gone, if you help me get these cars out of here, it'll be a split between you, me, and your sister. Whaddya say? Wanna be rich?"

Before he could continue on, I angrily grabbed the crowbar near the door. Springing up faster than a demonic jack in the box, I swung in a full circle before making sure the momentum filled bar wacked Tyson in the face. "I told you to leave the fucking caravan alone, Tyson. Not my fault you continently forget how I got so high in this world."

I dropped the crowbar to the ground and got ready to try and reach Serena again when a green gas filled the room. Before I could think to cover my mouth, e room span and I found myself falling to the floor, wondering just what I had gotten myself into this time.

**This should do it. I already have half of the second chapter done, so I should be able to get that to you guys soon, but don't expect regular updates from me. I'm a sophomore with my TAKS coming up and I don't have as much time as I did in middle school.**

**R&R please!**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN:/ I haven't updated in very long, and I'm sorry. You won't get as fast updates from me as UlurNaga gives because she, unlike me, has her own computer. I have an iPad with a notepad app. Can you see the difference in supplies there? I give this to you guys as I get my hands on cooperative equipment.**

It took me a bit longer to write this than I would have liked. I don't like doing the first few bits of any series. Sorry. Good news, though, we get to see Optimus and Tessa in this chapter. This is set in the middle of the third chapter, though, so don't expect any side Optimus-Tessa fluff for a while, though there will be much fluff from those two. OF THIS I SWEAR!

While on the subject, I don't own Transformers, Tessa, or the awesomeness that is the Autobots. Those belong to separate people, the most important still being UlurNaga. Get used to her name popping up people; she's getting Thanks and Praise from me until the end of this fic.

Also, I'm thinking of changing one of the pairings in this fic. Since Bee is rarely there for a long time, should I make this a Sides/OC? Any thoughts? Speak now, or forever hold your piece!

  
I woke in a small room, Serena sitting next to me. She was sleeping. I looked to her and saw that she wasn't restrained and then myself to realize I hadn't been tied to the bed as I'd expected. Thinking it over, they should have considered me part of the attack, after all, the only one who could say differently was Tyson, and I wasn't under the impression that he was willing to do me any favors.

Before my mind could continue, Serena, who had her head lying peacefully on my thigh as she slept, began to groan as her dreams took a less than pleasing turn. Not bothering to worry about whether or not there were and cameras in the small room, I racked my fingers through her hair, being sure that the rough pads of my fingers, callus from years of work, scraped across her scalp comfortingly. As soon as the groans and whimpers had come, they vanished.

There she laid, her black hair fanning across my leg, contrasting greatly with the white sheet I was underneath. Serena and I had very little in common when it came to looks. We had the same eyes, nose and build, but that was it. She had curly, black hair that was very short, reaching only her shoulders, whereas mine was a choppy red that grew to weird lengths, some parts longer than the others. She also had these bright, green eyes that were always full of this child-like wonder, while I had this dark blue that, according to Serena, always made me look like I was angry at something in the world, which I usually was when I thought about it. Serena was only 17, very young for someone in our profession, though I had started when I was much younger than her, and was a tiny, little thing, making it easy for her to slip into the smallest of spaces. I was 21, just a bit older and bigger, still small and thin as a stick, but a bit taller than her, which wasn't really saying much.

She was in new attire, and I assumed we probably wouldn't be getting our old clothes back. She wore a black tank top and a pair of baggy cargo pants. I looked to see her bare feet shivering on the ground and knew that they had probably offered her thick boots that she had promptly denied; sure they would make more noise than she liked.

I was in similar attire, and was very worried about who exactly had changed my clothes while I was asleep. My own toes, the skin dark from days in the sun and the nails cracked from no attention to the whatsoever, peaked out from underneath the sheet, starring at me as if to say, "Yes, I'm your feet. You got a problem or something?"

That was when the door opened and four very terrifying soldiers stepped into the room, the noise light enough for Serena to shift once, twice and then return to her slumber.

One man was tall, only a few inches below six feet, with broad shoulders and a pale skin that wasn't native from the village we'd been in. We were definitely in an American base. The hair on his head messy, but held under some sort of beret that probably meant something about his rank, but I couldn't tell. The color was a dark black, but, in the shimmering light, it looked blue in one or two places. He had a small bit of facial hair, not big enough to be a goatee, but not small enough to be mistaken as five o-clock shadow. His eyes were a neon blue that looked almost alien on a human face and I couldn't help but blink and rub my eyes when, I swore, they seemed to be glowing. Shaking my head, I blamed it on the lights and looked to the others.

The man next to him looked like a simple soldier. I'd seen dozens like him. The clean-cut, brown hair, the stone, unfeeling face that showed, literally, no emotion among a stranger, the suspecting, brown eyes that studied me as one would study a possible enemy, and the military uniform, which was missing only the gun that he probably dared not bring near such an unknown factor as me or my sister.

The other soldier was the same, the only difference being his dark brown skin (I'd once heard someone argue with another person whether or not people can truly be "black or white" and, somehow, he'd managed to get everyone in the pub to agree) and the fact that he had no hair on his very bald head whatsoever.

The fourth soldier was the one that made me sit up straight with the complete intention of protecting my little sister.

He was tall, almost taller than the first man, but, while he emanated the aura of a leader, this man oozed nothing but danger and war; had I to compare him to anyone, it'd have to be the god Ares. He had so many muscles on him, I'm sure about half of them were there just from having to move around with the other half weighting him down! He had short, spiky hair that was a much duller black that the first man's, but I was sure they must have been related, as they had the same, glowing eyes. Only, on the hulk's right eye, there was a long, marring scar that looked to be ages old.

It was best that they came in while Serena was asleep, otherwise she would have been terrified of him and the dangerous feel he gave off. I'd never seen anyone with that much bulk on them. I momentarily wondered if, on the off chance someone was stupid enough to try, when he was shot, the bullet just took a look at him and decided it wasn't worth the effort to try and break his thick hide.

When Serena began to wake, I pressed my fingers onto her head gently, being sure to make it look like I was still comforting her, and not warning her to keep her head down and pretend to sleep.

"You can let her up," the first man said, his voice kind and comforting. I almost believed him. "We mean you no harm."

This man was definitely a leader, his voice commanding in a way that made you want to listen to him. Not out of fear, that was a pointless power over someone, but because, deep down, you had the feeling he was right. Still, I was very good at burying those types of feelings alive, kicking them in the balls, and telling them to stay down there, so I stubbornly pushed her head down again, making sure to make it obvious that I didn't trust them.

The first man held my gaze, though, I'm ashamed to say it was more of a glare, and I couldn't see any frustration there, only pity, as if he felt sorry for me that I had become so afraid of people I wouldn't trust him. I could see it though, that he was someone most people put their trust in. Still, I'd seen many a con-man in my day, and I wasn't about to be conned into letting my sister get hurt

"We owe you our thanks for defending our cargo," he said, sitting next to me. "I've also been told we owe you an apology for, apparently, gassing you after you defended them." He gave me a careful look. "In our defense, it looked very bad for you, and there weren't many options."

I lifted my hand from Serena's head, moving it to her shoulder. The more this man spoke, the more I wanted to trust him, a trait I didn't see in many men from anywhere. "We just want to go home," I said, making sure not to say where our home was in case these men didn't know. Best that they know as little of me as possible. "When can we leave?"

At that, the man sighed and looked decisively guilty. "I'm sorry to say that it will be a little while before you can leave the base." He leveled me with a sad look, as if he were genuinely sorry for what he is about to say. "There are people who think that you have seen more than you know, which means that you must stay here until others can see fit to let you go." He looked at my sister, who had stiffened as she heard the words. "I am very sorry, but there are things going on here that you cannot understand just ye-"

I growled at him angrily. "Save it," I said, "You're an American soldier, but, from how you talk, I expect more from you that the usual bullshit these guys like to spew, so just go."

The walking hulk snarled furiously at me and stomped towards the bed. Serena turned into a stone statue and I began to streak her hair again to try and calm her down. "Listen, you little glitch," he ordered, getting right into my face. "This is the best you're going to get, so I suggest you make the best of it and shut up."

He wanted to tell me what to do? This walking tank thought that, just because he could probably bench press me and this bed with one hand that he could tell me what to do? "Now you listen to me you overgrown ape," I growled, getting out of the bed. I had to fight to ignore the wave of dizziness that overcame me, the blood rushing from my brain to my legs. "In case you haven't noticed, I've got a teenage girl to look after, and there's no fucking way in hell I'm going to leave her around a bunch of military men, so I suggest you get used to the snark and shut up."

The walking brick wall didn't take that well and went to grab me, probably only meaning to scare me, but was stopped by the leader. "Ironhide!" his voice snapped The Thing out of his anger induced fit and pulled both of our attention to where he stood. "Enough, both of you," he looked at me meaningfully, as if he was telling me that, even if I wasn't part of his team, I was going to listen to this particular order whether I wanted to or not. "I truly am sorry, miss," he said cordially, "But neither you nor your sister can leave this base until many people are sure that you will not try to reveal anything you may have seen."

"We haven't seen anything!" I shouted, frustrated. I don't know why I was fighting so hard to get back to the ME. I was from America originally, but, after so long there, it had slowly become my home. I still hated it there, but all of our things were there: our pictures, our clothes, and our memories. Most people looked forward to the day they could reach the Americas but it meant nothing if I had to leave everything I ever loved behind.

"Please, Sir," Serena begged, looking from one soldier to the other. "We won't say anything. We just want to go home." She came up next to me, her left hand clutching to my new shirt. "Please, just let us go home."

"I'm sorry," the soldier said again. "You cannot leave for now." He stood up. "With a lot of persuading, though, I've managed to let you two have free reign of the base." He stood up, looking straight at me. "Ironhide and I have to go, but Captain Lennox and Sergeant Epps will show you around the base."

"Thank you," I said honestly. I knew it wasn't his fault we were stuck there, and there was something . . . fatherly about him, a trait I hadn't seen in years. Still, I was a bit bitter over the whole thing, so I looked away from him, not wanting to see the pity on his face.

He nodded an action I saw from the corner of my eyes. In the end, we split into two groups. The soldier, Optimus, and the walking brick wall, Ironhide, going one way, and my sister, who clung fearfully onto me, and I following Captain Lennox and Sergeant Epps the other way.

The tour was brief, showing us where we could and could not go and what was in the places we could go. "Hey Lennox," a woman said as we walked into a garage. She took a look at us and smiled. "Getting some new recruits?" she smiled and raised our hand for us to shake, which we gleefully did, glad we wouldn't be the only non-males on the base. "I'm Tessa, the grease monkey on base."

She looked quite kind. She had auburn hair that was tied sloppily into a messy bun, strands falling out haplessly. Her brown eyes were squinted in the sunlight, which was very bright to be honest. She wore a threadbare, black tank and a jumpsuit that was tied at her waist. Her pale skin was dyed black and grey in some places by oil that had leaked from . . .

That was when I saw them. The most gorgeous pieces of machinery I'd ever seen assembled in one place, but my eyes automatically flew to one. "Is that a GMC C4500 4x4 Crew Cab Topkick?" My voice rose to a squeal at the last part, eyes nearly watering in shock. I turned my head and saw a large, truck, the very one I'd seen in the desert when the whole thing started. "What kind of Peterbilt is that?" I asked, running up to stand in front of it.

"That, my fellow mechanic," Tessa said, coming next to me, "Is a Peterbilt 397, custom paint job not by me." She smiled, running her fingers over the hood. I swear to this day, the cab seemed to shiver at the touch, but she ignored it. "He's a real piece of work, isn't he?"

"Never saw a truck so big in my life," I answered. "How do they run?" I begged looking at her pleadingly. "I know they've probably got the best engines ever, but you've gotta tell me how they run!"

At this, Tessa frowned. "Wish I could," she answered, looking at Lennox, "But I haven't been here that long, and I don't think they trust me not to crash 'em." she didn't sound bitter, which I would expect someone to be when they were surrounded by so many wonderful cars but not allowed to drive even one of them. She must have had a lot of patience.

My face fell as I realized that, if they didn't let the mechanic drive those cars, there was no way they'd let me. "They got V8's?" Serena asked, coming up next to me.

"I . . . don't know about that either," she said. "I'm not allowed to work on their engines just yet, but I'm sure I'll get to eventually." Tessa smiled at the thought, and I automatically decided that I really liked her. "How do either of you know so much about cars anyways?" she asked, looking at us carefully.

"Not much to do out in the desert when you've got down time except work on cars," I answered, shrugging and a blush tinted my face. "It may have grown into a very small obsession."

She raised an eyebrow and gave me a disbelieving look. "You could tell a Topkick down to the smallest detail using nothing more than your eyes, and you want to tell me you've only got a small obsession?" She smiled at me happily. "Don't worry. I'm just as OCD about these cars as you are. Especially Chief over here." She nodded to the large Peterbilt.

"Do you need any help?" Serena asked, looking over this sleek Corvette. The make was hardly her favorite, her heart belonged to Mustang, but she loved fast cars, and they don't get much faster than corvette.

"I just work on the framing," Tessa answered, rubbing her head. "Usually, when these guys leave for a mission, they come back with bullet holes the size of freaking golf balls!"

"Someone shot at them?" I asked, unable to see why. "That's a freaking Topkick, that's a corvette, that Hummer had GOT to be costumed, and, and," I started rambling on about the different things about each car, pointing out the value, my voice gaining power more and more as time went on.

"You'll have to forgive Sis," Serena asked Tessa. "When it comes to cars, anything that hurts and or damages something she respects is unfathomable. These cars fall under that category."

"Why would you send cars like this into the military anyways?" I screamed, still on my rant. "These should either be driven in drag races by fictional characters, like Dominic Tereto, or in a showing!"

"I get to spend all of my time with these boys," Tessa answered, walking over to her tools. "For now, I'm happy working out their bumps and bruises."

"You talk about them like they're alive," Serena observed. "I thought we were the only ones who did that."

"You treat cars like they're alive?" Tessa asked. It was then that I realized that our escorts had left us in Tessa's fine care, deciding that we would be safe and happy in the large garage.

"It's a habit," I answered, finishing my rant. "We once had this small Herbie faze after the new movie came out-"

"We're so ashamed," Serena interrupted, dramatically dropping herself on top of a chair.

"- and, after we saw . . . I think it was the second movie, we decided to treat all things like they're alive, just like the old lady in the house."

"Oh," Tessa cried, "I remember that movie. That's the one where the man sent to kick the woman out of the house falls for her daughter and learns that all the objects in the house are alive, right?"

"Finally," I screamed. "Someone under the age of forty who has seen that movie other than us!"

"Herbie always was my first love," Tessa said. She looked at the cars and sighed. "I'm sorry, guys, but I've got to work on these. I swear, sometimes I think the owner of that corvette crashes it on purpose!"

"Can we stay and watch?" Serena asked carefully, not wanting to impose, but certainly not wanting to go back outside with all those muscle men.

Tessa thought about it for a moment before nodding. "I'd think if they didn't want you around the cars, Lennox and Epps wouldn't have shown you the way here in the first place."

That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Done! I'm working on the third chapter right now, I might get it to you guys before tomorrow, so be on the lookout for that. As always, please review as much as you like, I encourage you to read Primary Mechanisms, which is the reason this is being written, and remember, if it takes you more than five seconds to explain how few fucks you give. You are giving far too many fucks.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:/ I have mastered the art of actually following through when I say I'll update. You all should be proud of me, I haven't updated this quickly on any story on my profile since *checks chapters for other stories* ever. Hmmm. I might want to fix that.**

I don't like not having the Autobots around, so I might be speeding up their appearance more than I should, but I don't really care at this point. THERE WILL BE AUTOBOTS!

Once again, I own nothing more than the more detailed bits of this story, the main two characters, and SOME dialogue. Other characters, dialogue, and the skeleton of the story is split quite unevenly between Bay and UlurNaga, more going to UlurNaga because, unlike Bastard Bay, SHE won't kill off Ironhide and made TessaXOptimus cannon!

Yes, they are cannon. I don't care what wiki says, this time, it's lying!  


We'd been there for several weeks before something relatively exciting happened.

The days were filled with the two of us staying near Tessa and the cars, helping out whenever Tessa asked for it, which wasn't that often. Tessa was one of the sweetest people we'd ever met, introducing us to skittles - Serena fell in love with them, but I didn't like them that much - and teaching us more about cars than we knew existed.

"Doesn't it bother you that they won't let you work on the engines?" I once asked her while she repainted some of the silver to the corvette. She was right the day we met her: the only way that car got scuffed and broken so much was if the owner was trying to make more work for her.

"They have their reasons," she said, "and, as long as I can still work on these cars, I'm alright with that." She glanced at me and saw the obviously disbelieving look I was giving her. "For now." That was the end of it.

We eventually found our clothes (there's no need for any of you to know how) and the homemade knives and daggers we'd managed to hide inside the fabric of the baggy pants. We willingly left the clothes there, but made sure to take the weapons with us. Though the days with these men and Tessa were wearing down my barriers, I still didn't trust them. Why didn't they let Tessa work on the engines of the trucks? What was an arsenal of expensive cars doing in the military in the first place? And what was it they thought I saw inside that truck? Until I got an answer to, at least, one of these questions - that whole "Tessa might crash the cars" excuse was a load of bull and we all knew it - I didn't trust a single one of them not to ship me off to some uncharted island in my sleep.

After a few months, though, Tessa asked us to stay out of the garage for the day.

"Did we do something wrong?" Serena asked, looking at her sadly. She was honestly enjoying her time with Tessa and the cars, something we didn't get that much back home, so we'd both been quite careful not to step on many toes while we were there. The last thing we wanted was to be confined to the room we were sleeping in at night.

"No, No!" Tessa cried, waving her arms. "I just . . . I think I'm going to ask Lennox to show me the engines, or, at least, let me drive them. And they . . . "

" . . . Still don't trust us completely," I finished, understanding. Tessa might love us, but those cars had to come first sometimes. "They might not let you look at them while we're around, what with the whole 'we know their hiding something' thing. It's fine. We get it." I looked at Serena scoldingly. "Don't we?"

Understanding what I was meaning, she nodded, her face pouting a bit despite her attempts otherwise. "Yeah, just . . . . have fun for us, kay?"

Tessa smiled, relieved. "Will do kiddo."

That day, Epps took Tessa out for lunch. Serena and I, wanting to talk to Lennox, ran over to find him in the garage. On our way there, though, we heard a noise that made us stop in our tracks. A loud, mechanical whirring accented with the familiar clanking of metal filled our ears. Before anyone could say anything, I quickly grabbed Serena's hand and dragged her back to our room, my feet moving quickly with me.

Luckily, everyone was at lunch, so our sudden sprint wasn't noticed by any of the other soldiers. It would have been a problem had it happened, as I wasn't exactly thinking clearly, my mind completely on autopilot until we reached our room, slamming it shut behind us and locking the door.

Once I was sure that we could stop, I let me forehead rest against the doorway, my breathing quick and uneven as the adrenaline continued to pump in my veins.

Next to the door, Serena slid down the wall, her back pressed firmly against it as she gripped her head in her hands, the hair slipping through the gaps between her fingers easily. Her breathing, more uneven than my own, was shallow as the shock began to set in.

"It can't be," I whispered eventually. "We killed them. It can't be."

"We don't know for sure," She said, looking at me with a desperate need for some sort of hope in her eyes. "It could have been a tape, or something that sounds like it."

"Name one thing that sounds like THEM," I ordered, waiting for an answer. Serena opened her mouth to answer, but closed it. Open. Close. Open. Close. After about six attempts, she finally shook her head. "Exactly."

"But . . . Optimus was so nice."

"Lots of people seem nice, Serena," I said, looking out the window at our door to see if anyone was there. "Few of them are. We've been here far too long if you've forgotten that." I know I sounded harsh, but vacation time was over. If I wanted to get Serena out of there, which was my top priority, I would have to stop being her sister and start being her leader again.

"Tessa's nice," she said.

Then it dawned on me. Tessa was alone with them. Who knew what could happen to her while she was alone with them!

Unless she was a part of all of it.

I didn't like the thought. Tessa had been . . . nice to us. That wasn't something we'd seen in a long time, but, a part of me had to wonder, was it because SHE was nice, or because she was very good at her job? Could I risk Serena's safety on the ideal that, sometimes, people are capable of being kind to people they don't know?

Firm memories flashed across the back of my eyelids, faces I knew far too well with sneers on their faces, older children who looked at me with kindness . . . .

No. I'd screwed up once, and Serena had almost died because of it. I wasn't going to fuck this up again. "I'll go look at them tonight," I said eventually. "If their engines are weird, we're leaving that moment, do you understand?" She nodded. "If not, we accept that it might have been a figment of our imagination and continue on the way we have been, but with the knives and daggers with us at all times, understood?" Once again, she nodded. "Good. Now, go get some sleep. If we have to leave, we won't have much time for naps on the road."

With a submissive nod, she crawled over to the bed and lay down to take a nap, not sure what answer would be awaiting her when she awoke.

SS

That night, I slipped out of the room effortlessly. They hadn't put guards in front of our door since the first month. Eventually, I found myself climbing up the walls. Careful to stay out of the line of the cameras, I scaled the wall onto the roof, where the security was far more lax than on the ground, where most people would expect someone to come from.

It didn't take long to find myself sneaking down the catwalk, my eyes carefully trained on the cars on the floor. For a moment, I thought of just . . . going back. Just telling Serena we were wrong and acting like everything was normal. We liked it there, we were . . . not happy, per say, but better than we'd been back in the Middle East. Did I really want to risk all that just over some stupid noise?

More memories flowed through my mind, supplying my answer in the form of faces, bleeding with hallow eyes that stated at me accusingly, as if shouting silently at me, "Why didn't you stop them?"

Serena wouldn't join their faces.

Tip toeing quietly, an effortless act when you're barefoot, I slinked silently over to the Topkick. If I was going to have my heart shattered into tiny pieces, I'd prefer to, at least, say I touched a Topkick.

Little did I know, the cars around me were very wide awake and had already called Lennox and the others to check on our room to make sure Serena was still there.

Terrified of what I would see, I lifted the hood of the Topkick, my eyes fearfully glued to where the regular engine would be.

If the resistance I felt when lifting the hood wasn't proof, the engine, beating in the metal cage like a heart, was.

These cars were monsters.

**I swear to god, I will explain that last sentence in the next chapter!**


	4. Chapter 4

**AN:/ See why I haven't updated in so long now? I've had all these chapters, and no way to get them to you guys! I'm really sorry; perhaps the quantity makes up for it? Please?**

So, we get to see all the Autobots, though not all of them are mentioned because Selena was, understandably, preoccupied at the time. I've been waiting for this since I started this whole story! I guess I'm just a horribly impatient writer.

Once again, I own nothing except minor details about the story and my two OCs. Main story and characters belong to UlurNaga, as I feel Michael Bay no longer deserves any control over such an amazing world after the horror he did to Ironhide! Besides, Ulur gave us TESSA! Who can't help but love Tessa? Now, go forth, read!

  
I wasted no time, slamming the hood down furiously, my heart tackling my ribcage like that guy from The Blind Side. Before I could get to the door, though, it opened to show Lennox and a large number of soldiers, two of whom had a hand on one of Serena's arms. I saw the muscles flex and could see her occasionally jerk from one side to the other, randomly waiting for their grip to loosen. I wasn't too concerned. For all that hype I put up about taking care of my little sister, Serena is perfectly capable of defending herself.

"I think it's time to talk," Lennox said, stepping forward.

My mind on autopilot, I flipped over the railing and slid down the handlebar of the stairs to the floor below. In retrospect, it wasn't a good idea. I was surrounded by those . . . things, there was a large number of feet between me and the door, which, if I was right, would begin closing the minute I looked like I was heading for it, and, from their vantage point, snipers would have had a much easier shot at me from down there.

The problem was: there was no maneuverability on the cat-walk. I would have only one was to go, and they knew it. Those soldiers were much more used to fighting in closed quarters than I was, specializing myself in using the things around me as leverage or momentum. On that cat-walk, there was no leverage, no momentum. Serena would be fine, fighting in closed spaces was her thing, but first, I'd have to give her the chance to get away from those guards.

"Selena," Lennox warned, a gun pointed straight at me. "We just want to talk, but you cannot leave until we do." His voice sounded strangled, like a friend fighting with another over something important. It reminded me of a tourist in a town and her friend. The two wound up arguing about religion. Lennox's voice sounded almost identical, but he wasn't my friend. None of them were. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Bullshit," I whispered, and the corvette next to me shook as if to reprimand me for my words.

Unknown to them, that corvette had reminded me of the main reason being on this floor was not a good idea, and I automatically chose to react. Leaping in the air, I grabbed the bars under the catwalk and used them to propel myself closer to the door, hoping to cover more space safer than just running in the middle. I landed, feet first, on the large hummer-ambulance, not surprised in the least when it, literally, threw me off angrily. Rolling on the ground, I made a complete break for it.

That exact moment, I heard seven shots ring out, five of which missed me one grazing me, and one getting me right in the calf. Grunting, I noticed my speed slow and heard Lennox shout at the men to hold their fire. I saw the door begin to close, knew I wasn't going to make it, and admitted that trying would only end with me as an easy target against the door.

I turned to see several men, including Lennox, thrown from the side of the catwalk, each one landing fine, if a bit clumsily. As I looked to the doorway, I saw Serena, trying to disable the five men still up there, next to her. One of the ones from the ground lifted his rifle towards her and, angrily, I tackled him to the ground, taking the butt of the rifle and smashing it into his nose before he or his friends could react, hoping it went straight into the bastard's brain.

Not giving them a chance to react, I swung my leg next to me, knocking two of the off their feet. Lifting the rifle, I swung it angrily, but precisely, being sure to make the other three surrounding me take a few steps back or risk getting smacked in the gut. Dropping the gun next to me, I swung at one guy, who dodged it easily. While I was focused on him, the other guy got a hit in on my gut. Kicking straight at him, I wasn't surprised when he also dodged, but wasn't ready to have accidentally kicked Lennox in the nuts in the process.

He's already had one kid, though. Does he really need another?

The fall of another soldier must have been the breaking point, though, because, the minute he hit the ground, a commanding voice bellowed out, the sound vibrating through the floor and walls as if from the earth itself. "ENOUGH!"

To this day, I have absolutely no idea why I stopped fighting. Neither Serena nor I have the slightest idea why we stopped, Serena mid-throw and me mid-kick, but we did. I watched in horror as the Peterbilt lifted up, transforming into a large, humanoid robot, staring down angrily at us with neon blue eyes – optics I think they called them. It wasn't until I truly looked at those eyes that I remembered where I'd seen them before. That man Serena and I had trusted that first day, the one who had managed to convince me that it was safe to stay there, wasn't even a man at all. He was something far, far worse, and, that part of my mind that had warned me not to trust him, laughed hysterically at my anger and hurt. I should have known better, I should have done better, I should have BEEN better!

"Serena, Selena," he said, looking at us carefully, "We will explain what is happening, but you must stop this useless violence." As he spoke, the others transformed, as well, proving that the others were just as alien as him, including my once-beloved Topkick.

"Thanks," I said sarcastically, taking a few steps from him, "But, no thanks. We've heard the speech before, I don't think we need a re-hashing of why following Megatron to the ends of the earth is the best option for such 'useless organics', so just open the damn door and let us go."

"We ain't no 'Cons!" one of the old, muddy dirt bikes shouted, stomping in front of me.

"If it has the engine of a con, transforms like a con, and looks like a con, I'm pretty damn sure it's a con!"

"What's this?" Serena said suddenly, climbing down from the cat walk onto the arm of the ambulance while completely ignoring his barking orders for her to "get the slag off of him" until she reached a symbol on one of his shoulder plates. There, she pointed to a red face staring seriously at us all. "That's not the purple one the others had."

"That's because Autobots and Decepticons fly under different flags," the robot answered hotly, sounding like an offended scientist. "Think of it as the difference between an American flag and a Chinese one." He turned his gaze back to Serena, who was still hanging onto his arm with one arm while the other arm and leg hung tiredly off to the side. "Now will you please get off of me?" I fought back a smile at his irritated tone.

"Nope."

"Now do you understand?" the Topkick asked, and, to my complete and utter disgust, I recognized the voice easily as the one from The Walking Tank. "Autobots and Decepticons are two entirely different sides, squishy."

"I understand that you don't get along. It doesn't mean that you're any better than them."

"Why you little-"

"It takes two sides to have a war!" I shouted. "Each side thinking they're right and better than the other!"

"Sometimes one side is truly right," Optimus said diplomatically, sounding oh, so much like the man from that cold, white room the day I woke up in this strange place. "Do you want to risk turning away from that right side because you were so afraid of the wrong one?"

I wanted to say yes. I'm not proud of it, but that piece of my mind, the one that kept those first few memories of mine fresh in my mind so I can never forget them, said that it wasn't worth the risk. I knew what they could do, and it was too dangerous. They were too dangerous. There was an unknown about them, and, no matter what I tried to tell myself, I would never be able to understand it. Optimus had already proven he could lie and hide things from me (though I don't think he ever out-right lied to us) without me even wanting to think he wasn't telling me everything. Could I really listen to what he said?

The usual part of me that said not to trust anyone besides Serena reminded me of the stupidity of trusting him in the first place, and half of the part that had said to trust him last time, the half hurt by his betrayal and secrets, said to get out of dodge and make sure to slap I'm on the way, but a small piece, a tiny portion of my mind that still wanted to trust him got me to open my mouth. "You've got my attention. For now."


	5. Chapter 5

**AN:/ Another chapter my pretties. This one's mostly filler, showing the transition for Serena and Selena into the world of the transformers, with a small bit of drama at the end that might end up being more important than it seems now. Maybe. Possibly. If I feel like it at any random part of the story.**

I honestly am not sure where to go from here, so don't expect any updates until I can figure out if I want to just continue with the Primary Mechanisms story or have a few chapters of interaction between the others.

Again, I own only the two main characters, details, and some dialogue. The rest belongs to UlurNaga. Yes, Ulur, we, as a fan base, hereby give you all the rights to- wait what? What do you mean we can't give her the rights? I don't care what he said, Bay doesn't- No! He told me- Yes, I know that deals made under duress are- Yes, I was holding him hostage over a tank of sharks that would gladly feast on his flesh if he didn't agree, but- Alright fine, FINE! Sigh. It seems that, apparently, the rights that I recently acquired from Mr. Bay- No. I did not steal them! Ahem. The rights I acquired are no longer seen as in my possession, so I cannot give them to you even if you deserve them more than the idiots who are in charge. They say you should remain happy with owning Primary Mechanisms- I don't care if Bay made the movie it's based on, IT'S STILL HERS DAMN IT! And Tessa. . . I dare you to give me crap about Tessa, Lawyer Dude. I DARE YOU!

Oh, look. He ran away!  


By the time the sun came up the next morning, Serena and I had agreed to stay. Lennox and Ironhide were a bit mad at me for not saying how we knew who the Decepticons were, but I had ignored their glares and the suspicious glances my answer had gotten from Jolt and Rachet. I didn't care if they didn't trust me because, despite my agreement to stay, I didn't completely trust them, so we were even there.

Weeks passed, the time flying easily. We would occasionally leave the base with Tessa (a show of faith on Optimus's point, one that I intended to repay if he ever needed it) and go to restaurants and fast food joints, something neither Serena nor I could ever remember ever having before.

I'd had burgers before, but never like McDonalds. I'm not proud of the moans I made, or how many hamburgers I must have eaten after my first, but, in my defense, the power of Mickey D's was quite destructive. It wasn't like Serena was any better, slurping down five large chocolate malts from Whataburger before Tessa and I had pried the sixth cup from her hyperactive hands, deciding that she had, definitely, had enough for a week, though we found ourselves doing the exact me thing the next day, making sure to buy Tessa food on our government-funded credit card, since we had no idea what they paid her. We were sure it wasn't enough, though.

We got along more with some of the other bots though. Most of them had their own ideas about what had happened, I never asked for fear of what I'd hear, and decided, as Sideswipe had put it, the Decepticons were bad enough to make anyone distrust their race.

Jolt never came near us, Ironhide hates me, and Rachet's addition that he was able to stand us was made quite begrudgingly, but I didn't blame them. Except for Ironhide. I hated Ironhide. I'll admit, it was an irrational hate, but I couldn't stand the fact that the one bot I argued with the most took the form of the one car I'd always wanted. It just irked me inside.

Tessa was . . . Tessa. I don't think she'll ever be capable of being anyone else. She's always sweet and patient with us, something that once made me weary about her. She would take us to different places, always surprised when we admitted that we'd never been to certain places, like a super mall, and would instantly insist to show us. Her complete trust of the Autobots worried me. She just completely gave them all the love and trust she had, something I simply wasn't used to seeing from anyone. It probably had to do with the fact that she'd never seen the cons, never known what . . . what they could do to a person with no remorse whatsoever.

Still, that trust and love, that's just what made her so special. I didn't dare tell her why I hated them in the beginning, for many reasons. Besides the fact that I had this permanent image of her stomping up to Optimus crawling her way to his face and angrily demanding he and Lennox go take a S.W.A.T team to take them out, she was abnormally empathetic. It was ridiculous how she would be able to feel the emotions of others, sometimes more strongly then they themselves do. If I told her what they'd done before she was really used the death, violence and hatred that comes with the war she's become involved in, it might break her, and, for some reason, I didn't want that to happen, not to her.

That was also the reason I raised an eyebrow when she and Optimus went on that trip to the hospital. It brought my attention to the fact that I'd never seen the giant bot leave the base for anything other than a mission. The others would occasionally leave for a drive or two every other week, Sides being the main one in that group, but he never left. Still, I'd keep my suspicions to myself. Despite my mistrust of everyone there besides Tessa, I happened to actually like Optimus, another thing that I wasn't used to at all.

Eventually, I might have screwed up. After so long away from home, I started back up with training. As far as Tessa and the Bots knew, our exercise consisted of an ungodly number of sit ups and pushups while talking to Tessa, pull ups on the bars of the catwalk, something Tessa was always saying would get us killed, and running twenty miles every day. What they didn't know was the small sparring sessions we would have in the room, unseen as I had long since disabled all the cameras in the room.

I wasn't, however, expecting Sideswipe to come see if we wanted to come with him and Tessa to a concert in the middle of a spar.

He had just happened to open the door at one of the more violent portions of the session. We must have looked feral. I had Sean trapped on the ground, one hand firmly yanking her hair, my arm tight around her throat. My knee was angrily digging into the base of her spine, the hard bone bothering both of us as she uselessly flailed about, trying to force me off of her.

Eventually, she managed to get a good hit on my jaw and my grip on her loosened, giving her the chance to escape. Before she could completely get back up, though, I kicked her in the ankles, forcing her to fall right back down, her head smacking against the concrete floor. I moved to hit her again, but she rolled out of the way, placing her own kick to my face as retribution for my hit. This was no merely sparring. We were in a full out battle royal.

"Stop! Stop it, both of you!" Sideswipe ran between us, one arm ramming into my chest as I went to tackle my sister and another around her waist as she went to back flip away from me, leaving me with a pretty bad bruise on my chest (even human, I swear those guys are made of metal) and her swinging on his arm like a gymnast on in bar, his arm probably pressing quite uncomfortably on her stomach. "You two are slagging sisters. Sisters! You do NOT fight with your sisters, slag it, you protect them! Just what the Pit is wrong with you two?"

"Sideswipe," Serena whispered her voice incredibly hoarse, "I can't breathe."

Automatically, he flew into a panic, "Did you hurt your chest, did you break one of those lungs!"

"Your arm is in the way!"

" . . . Oh." Embarrassed, he set her down carefully, still making sure to stand between the two of us. "Sorry about that, but you two should be fighting. Siblings should never-"

"We weren't fighting," I interrupted him, quite irritated. Had he been a normal man I could have taken him. I swear! He turned and gave me that look you give people when they bullshit you blatantly. "We weren't! We were just sparring!"

"THAT," he said incredulously, "Was NOT sparring."

"It is for us," Serena said, shrugging. "Always has been."

"Primus, you two looked like you were trying to kill one another!"

"We never do," Serena assured.

"I don't know," I said, just to worry him. "There was that time I sliced your artery when we started practicing with knives."

"What's an artery?"

I sighed, disappointed that the reference was completely lost on him. Only Rachet, and probably Optimus, would have given the reaction I was thinking of. And Tessa. Tessa would have flipped.

"Both of you go to the infirmary and get checked out," he said, pointing to the door. When I made it plainly obvious that we weren't going (because we honestly didn't need it) he scowled, looking a bit too much like Rachet for my taste. "Do it, or I'll tell Optimus and Tessa you two were fighting."

"Do that and I'll paint you neon pink while you sleep ya damn Italian sports car!"

"I am not!" he said, looking affronted, "I'm all American baby."

"Sis, let's just go," Serena said. "Well just say we fell off the stairs."

I looked between the two. Eventually, I gave in, agreeing to go to the infirmary, we're that said that the only real damage they could see on either of us was a few good bruises on the face, arms legs, and one very sore bruise on my chest, which I glared at Sideswipe for.

"You two shouldn't fight like that," he said, driving next to us as we went to the garage. "You could actually hurt one another."

"Don't start again, Sides," I complained. "I swear to god, if you say one more word about that spar to anyone, us included, I'll stick a great, big Barbie sticker right in the middle of your hood and replace that corvette symbol with a Golf."

He shook next to us. "You wouldn't!"

I smirked, my face seeming evil and cruel. "Try me."

He agreed to never tell anyone, though I knew he wanted to say something. For the next two weeks, Sides kept making these snide little comments about how siblings shouldn't fight. I didn't know why it was such a hang up for him. She was my little sister, if I want to fight her, it should be our business. Unless I try to kill or maim her, which would never happen, he didn't have a right to tell me how to train her.

That fight had made something painfully clear to me: we'd gotten soft while there. Spew should have been able to take those guys out easily. Instead, we almost lost, just because there were more of them. Had we been back home, we would have died. We weren't staying there forever. One day, we'd have to go back to the hot desert and leave this behind, and if Serena and I couldn't handle fighting one another, or take out less than fifteen men on our own. We were screwed.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN:/ Wow, I got a lot of positive reviews from my epic insertion of chapters! It didn't take long to get back in the groove, but, again, I can't get these things to you guys as fast as I want to. I took my time writing this, but I'll try and get it to you guys quickly.**

**This chapter goes a bit further into how Lennox treats the girls and gives small hints about what their past is. I want to make a very good point here: Selena is childish. She may be the eldest, and she may be a lot more mature than most people her age, but she still learned a lot of her more mature behavior from television, as she felt that the fake adults on the television were better people than the real ones she knew. Because of that, she sometimes slips back into the child that she never really got to be. She's supposed to be petty and she's supposed to get annoyed when others challenge her because she's a child in a lot of rights. That childishness is sometimes overpowered by the angst she's experienced, which make her more complicated.**

**Sorry, beta'ed this with my friends and they all had spaz fits over why she acted the way she did, thought I'd make it clear now.**

**I want to point out, if this seems a little weird, that's because I wrote it when a transformer, I kid you not, blew at my school and some random chemicals wound up wandering around the vents for a while before someone pulled the fire alarm. After that, we waited another ten minutes before leaving. If you hear of any strange mutants becoming super villains, they probably came from my school after we inhaled energon.**

**Ah, I see Lawyer Dave has returned. –Yes Lawyer Dave, I am aware that I do not own Transformers. Even if – Yes, Dave, I know that kidnapping a director is a federal offence, but – No, Dave, I will not give Bay Serena or Selena, those two are mine. – No, Dave, He can't have Tessa either, that one belongs to both Optimus and UlurNaga. You can try to take her from them. I encourage you to. **

**Now, if any of you see a large, blue Peterbilt with a small Lawyer named Dave tied to the hood of the car like a piece of deer meat, please let him off. He needs to bring my demands back to the studio in exchange for Bay.**

Apparently, my threats towards Sideswipe should have been directed towards the medic that worked on me after the spar. The next day, I walked into the garage and saw Tessa motion for Serena and me to go into her office, just off to the side, where Lennox and Epps were waiting for us. Each had an angry expression on their faces, and their arms crossed like disapproving parents, though Tessa looked like an angry mother who found out her daughter had been bullied at school.

"Who was it?" Lennox asked closing the door behind us as we walked in.

"Who?" I asked genuinely oblivious to the reason for their disapproving glares and the livid smoke coming out of their ears like in those old cartoons.

"Don't BS us Selena," Epps growled. "Everyone knows. You can't just show up to the infirmary with fist-sized bruises and scrapes all over and it not be noticed, now who beat you two up and when?"

A small tick formed in my jaw. A part of me fought to control the anger inside of me. Meanwhile, the rest was plotting the slow, tortuous, and fire-filled death of a certain Corvette that was just outside of the room we were in. I had told that pit-damned (I was getting used to the curses of the 'Bots) aft-head that not to say anything, and he just had to go off an open his mouth to –

Wait, they thought we'd been beaten?

For a moment I wasn't sure what I was supposed to feel. A part of me was touched, far more deeply than I liked to admit, that they had cared enough about us to think of something. They looked like they were ready to go straight for whoever had done it. Even Tessa, who, by nature, was not a violent person in any way, looked like she was willing to take a wrench to someone's head.

On the flip side, I was pissed. I'm a grown woman. Sure, I have my teenage moments, and I can be childish, but I've been taking care of myself and my sister for years. They honestly thought that I needed to be protected like some child? I grew up in the Middle East, a bunch of military men _do not scare me._

Then I was insulted. I thought they knew me better. I'd made it plain that I was incredibly overprotective of my sister, never letting her out of my sight, and they thought that I was going to let a bunch of random punks put their hands on her? Hell no. Believe me, had someone even tried to hit Serena, they would have known by the trail of organs left across the base as I made sure he became "one with the earth". They honestly thought that I was going to _let_ someone put their hands on her?

After a while, I calmed down and began to speak, trying to get them to listen to reason. "I think there was a disconnect somewhere along the line here," I said, motioning for them to sit down. They didn't. "Serena and I had a small spar in our room. Sides saw and flipped out because he thought we were fighting and made us go to the infirmary. We hadn't even broken anything, we were just bruised, and most of them are gone now." Alright, I'll admit that the last part was a lie. Serena and I didn't hold back when we were sparing because any other opponent wouldn't hold back either, and both of us had a pretty mean swing.

Lennox and Epps calmed down a bit after that, the idea of sparing to keep in shape completely fine with them, but Tessa shifted nervously. Knowing her, she was probably more distressed over the idea of us fighting than the idea of us being in a random fight. If we were in a fight, she had someone to blame for all the bumps and bruises on us, but if we were fighting each other, shoe couldn't very well blame one of us for the other's bruises without picking a side, which she never wanted to do.

She'd be a great mom one day.

After a bit of a talk, though, Lennox made a decision. "Have a spar right here," he said, motioning towards the empty space in the middle of the garage that was normally filled with the metal limbs of the Autobots. "If we think you two are pushing too hard, we'll stop it. If not, there's nothing to worry about."

In that moment, I could have killed Lennox. Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy, but he's a bit of a . . . overprotective idiot. I'm sorry, but it's true. The man's always trying to keep us from fighting or doing anything to dangerous, and I can't help but feel that he's . . . projecting. I get the feeling he's thinking of us like he would think if his daughter were there, and it's driving me nuts. I feel sorry for the girl's first boyfriend; he's never getting out of the relationship.

"No way," I said sternly. "I'll keep _my _spars with _my_ sister to _my_self, thank you very much."

"Selena, we're just worried," Tessa said, I leveled her with a look that plainly said 'Really? You hang out with giant alien robots all day, and _you're_ worried about _me_?' "I don't like this," she said eventually, "But I'll let it go. You two can, obviously, take care of yourselves."

For that, Tessa got a big hug from both of us. I had no idea how someone who was only a few years older than me wound up becoming my mother. It was just . . . odd.

"Well I'm not," Epps said. "I want to see this spar. There's a difference between sparing and trying to kill each other. We don't know if you know the difference."

"And you never will."

"Do it, or I'll tell Optimus."

What is it with everyone threatening me with Optimus lately? Was I supposed to be afraid of him (because I was)? Was I supposed to think of him as my commander (because, deep, deep down, I knew he was)? Was I supposed to be searching for his approval (because . . . nope, not admitting to that one. Not at all)?

"Fine," I growled, "But I refuse to be held responsible for any damages done to . . . anything." The _or anyone_ of that sentence, I decided, was best left unsaid.

"I don't know about this," Serena said, walking into the middle of the garage as Lennox and Tessa explained to the 'Bots what was about to happen. "We have a tendency to get . . ."

"Violent?" I supplied. "Brutal? Vicious? Destructive?" She nodded and I sighed. "I guess we can just forgo the whole thing."

"Good luck Tiny," Ironhide bellowed. "Try not to get your aft kicked by your little sister!"

My eyes narrowed and a childish need to prove someone wrong rose inside me. Normally, I would have easily put the feeling down and just gone with my original plan to just say 'Hell with it' and leave it alone, but there was something about Ironhide that brought out this juvenile need to act like a three year old and have a shouting contest with him. I was going to have to fix that one day.

"One day I'm going to _maul_ that over-grown can opener," I snarled. "Let's go."

"Didn't you just say. . ." She trailed off as a smile appeared on her face. "Oh, I see." She sighed. "You two are like a couple of kids on a playground with all this arguing, I swear."

Without another word, I crouched down, waiting for her to make the first move. This was one of the most important parts of a fight. How your opponent attacks first can show you a lot about their fighting style and how they plan on taking you down. Don't pay attention to the more subtle parts of the opponent; you completely waste your time with the fight because you're _going _to lose.

After a small time of walking in a large circle, she leapt, always the impatient one. The fight started off like a normal spar, we merely threw each other around, held one another in head-locks, and threw a punch or two, but, after a particularly strong throw, I landed right on top of Ironhide in his Alt Mode. Needless to say, both 'Hide and the others were a bit disturbed at how I landed heavily on top of the hood, my spine feeling the hard metal beneath. My head slammed excruciatingly into the small crevice between the windshield and the hood.

I'm willing to confess that I should have let it die there. I should have stayed perfectly calm and said that would be the end of the fight. I should have acted like the mature, older of the siblings and proven that I was, in fact, twenty one. I should have let it go, but I didn't. Instead, I wrathfully rolled off the hood and kicked a wrench her way. She dodged quickly, but didn't fail to retaliate with a swing of a lead . . . where the hell did she get a lead pipe from, now that I think about it?

Before I could take another hit at her, I felt two arms wrap themselves around my middle, holding me back; I reacted instinctually, slamming the back of my head into my captor's face. Instead of hearing the sometimes sickening CRACK of their nose breaking, I got a very sore head for my efforts, proving that my captor was, in fact, a holoform.

I take no responsibility for the damage and deafness induced in the fight that ensued between me and the holoform, who I later found out was Ironhide. Optimus, thinking quickly, had taken Tessa and the others out, seeing that we weren't exactly in our right minds after our spar had ended.

My mind went completely blank. The only thoughts in my mind were flashes of memories, of times when I had been painfully held down by something as strong as them, of being ripped from Serena, of hearing the screams of others and begging to be let go. My mind went completely on autopilot and I thrashed about angrily. By the time I had finally exerted enough force and energy to tire me out, the night had fallen and I just laid there, limp. Ironhide held my carefully, and watched as Sideswipe, who had gone through the same hell with my sister, carried Serena off.


	7. Chapter 7

**You know you love me. You know you missed me in the small amount of time since I gave you that sixth chapter. I want you all to know that I started this chapter just after I posted that one.**

**This one is the start of everything being in third person, as I want to get into how others feel about the girls' presence on the base and not just how they **_**think**_** the others feel about it, as Selena, though I do love her so, is a bit of a pessimist.**

**Ah, Lawyer Dave. I see you've returned. Have my demands been met? No. So I don't own Transformers? You won't give it to UlurNaga either? I see. No, I don't believe you can leave, as I was planning on giving those rights to Ulur as thanks for giving the world Tessa, who is awesome, and PrimMech, which should be cannon. Until I get them, I'm afraid you can't leave Lawyer Dave.**

Ironhide was shocked. He hadn't thought things would go so far so quickly. When he'd heard the fleshy little glitch from before would be fighting her sister in a spar. He hadn't thought that his small ribe would lead to such a disaster.

I didn't like the eldest girl, Selena, as she called herself. Her accent was distinctly American, with no hints at all of being from the Middle East. He had checked, but when the other Bots and Lennox had searched for the two girls, even using the Autobot's insanely vast and quick prossesors, they hadn't found even a blip of either of them going missing from the country. They hadn't found any proof they'd ever existed at all. No last name, no birth certificate, no passport, no nothing.

This had unnerved their leader. When they asked Lennox why something like that would happen, his only answer had been, "Sometimes, parents don't do the job that they're meant to do."

He still hadn't liked the idea of a couple of unknown glitches anywhere near his Prime, or the new mechanic, Tessa, who he had grown unnaturally fond of after so much time near her. Had either one of them hurt her, he wouldn't be proud of what he would do.

Not only that, but the glitch seemed to have some unknown grudge against him. He didn't understand why she was so angry with him. When she'd first seen him, before she had known about the Autobots, she loved him, and was always asking Tessa when they would ever let her drive him, not that he was going to let some water bag ever drive him, but it was the thought that mattered there. After she had learned who they really were, though, she had treated him even worse than she had treated him in his holoform when they'd first met.

That was another thing he simply had hated about her: the way she had talked to both him and Prime when they'd first met. She'd been so disrespectful, when Prime had been so kind. He should have left the two of them to rot in the tiny room until there was nothing left, but, no, that would be wrong. Never mind that it was also wrong to use totally innocent 'bots as metal shield in the middle of a fight with someone!

He couldn't understand how the other bots stood her. They even got Ratchet to, although grudgingly, admit that he didn't hate them as much after a while. How had it happened? He could understand Tessa worming her way into everyone's Sparks, that was different. She was actually a good person, despite the way they would argue so often. These girls were. . . alright, the younger sister was almost as adorably naieve as Annabeth, but the sister was worse than a year in the Pit.

That was why he hadn't hesitated to goad her when he'd heard there was going to be a small fight between the two sisters, the word had simply slipped out of his vocal processors. He'd have been so much more careful with what he said had he known what his words would lead to.

The fight had started simply enough, though everyone was a little disturbed by the ferocity the two sister's had gone at each other, resembling a couple of wild animals fighting for meat, though neither of them ever really got hurt. Nothing worse than a hit or two to the face and a rather tight looking choke-hold that made everyone in the room flinch when they noticed the victim beginning to turn several different shades of four different colors as they fought off the other sister.

That all stopped the moment Selena had landed on top of him. She had slammed into him with an aggressiveness the seldom came from anything shot of a large explosion. Her skin had hit his metal with a resounding "BANG". Her head had slammed into the small part between his hood and his windshield. He was worried as she laid there for a moment, thinking that she had hurt herself, he'd created a holoform as Tessa had been, quickly lead away from the entire thing by Prime, having flown into a frenzy as she had tried to get to the girl lying on his hood.

Before he could touch her, she had rolled off of him easily, causing him to shiver as her skin brushed his metal. He had avoided human contact, with the exception of Tessa, for a reason: his metal was sensitive to the feel of human skin.

He had been so wrapped up in rationalizing why he had shivered from her touch, he had almost missed seeing the wrench she had kicked at her sister or the . . . where the Pit had the other sister gotten a Pipe from?

Several other random objects had flown between the two and blows exchanged before Ironhide had managed to get a good grip on the little femme, hoping that one of the others would be able to get a hold on Serena.

That was when he saw it: the look in her eyes. He'd seen that look before, he was sure he'd had it on his own face the first few times he'd ever been in war. It was the look one got when they were in a completely different frame of mind. The femme in his arms didn't think she was in the garage, she didn't think she had been fighting her sister, she was somewhere else completely. As far as he knew, she could have been right where she'd met the first Con she'd ever seen. He couldn't know.

"Selena," he called, not acknowledging that it was the first time he'd ever called her by her name. "Selena, calm down. You're at the base! Snap out of it!" No matter what he said, she still thrashed wildly in his arms, screeching for him to let her go before she did one of many violent things to him. He was actually surprised by the number of things she could think up and wondered if she spent time thinking of them often.

Off to his side, Sideswipe was having the same issue with the other femme, though she was much more docile than her violent sister, only screaming for him to let her go.

The other 'Bots had left, feeling that, by staying, they risked seeing or hearing something they didn't know if they wanted to see. Besides, someone had to help calm down Tessa, who was about to bash a large hole in the door in an attempt to get to her new friends.

The screaming had lasted for a long time, though Selena had held the phase longer than her sister, seeming to be desperate to get out of his arms, despite the harm she could do to herself or her sister. After that had come the crying and begging. That, both bots had decided, was worse than the screaming. The threats, they could handle. Some of them were so impossible that they couldn't have any reason to be worried, while some had been so funny, they had been forced to try and stop themselves from laughing hysterically. The crying, however, had been torture. Now, they understood why some of the other soldiers had joked that they couldn't stand the sight of a crying woman. It was hardly a pretty one to look at.

It wasn't like on all the strange film the two Bots had seen in their time on the planet. There was no silence or even bouts of sobbing. There was only huffs and puff as the two sisters fought to breathe past the uneven sobs, ranging from loud to whimpering, there were tears flowing from their eyes, turning their skin leathery, and then there was the begging. They begged for things that the two bots didn't even understand, the words broken and unfinished as they were torn apart by the random sobs that popped up in the middle of their speech. By the time both of the bots had decided that they didn't even want to know what the girls were asking, they had fallen asleep, the expenditure of energy being too much for either of them.

"I didn't know human femmes could even do that," Sideswipe said carefully, moving the girl from hanging limply in his arms as they were on her waist to what they'd heard called "bridal style". Ironhide followed suit and tried to get the little femme to let go so he could set her on a chair in the corner of the garage.

She wouldn't let go.

He had tried everything. When he'd tried to move his head through the hole her arms had created while holding onto his neck she's grabbed his holoform's hair. When he'd tried to just drop her and leave her there, she'd wrapped her legs around his waist, making his work even more difficult, and, when he'd tried to just make the holorform disappear, she'd done the most pathetic thing.

She'd let out a small, derisible whimper.

He had no choice after that. He had to let the little femme sleep wrapped around him. He told himself that he hated the idea of her cuddling next to him, of molding herself perfectly to his body, but a small part of his mind purred when she nuzzled the small part of his neck and collar. He looked to see if Sideswipe would be willing to help, but he just shrugged, stuck in almost the exact position he was in, only Serena, had her face buried into the holoform's chest, and her arms were around his waist.

"They're more stubborn than Tessa," he whispered, sliding into his back seat, making sure she was comfortable on top of him, obviously more at ease with the situation than Ironhide.

Ironhide merely grumbled, sliding into his own seat, following Sideswipe's example of being careful as he made sure she slept comfortably on top of him. Eventually, when her subconscious was sure he wasn't going to leave her alone, her arms had relaxed, and one had even slid to fall next to him, her fingers gently brushing the parking break.

He shouldn't stop the sudden hitching in breath he felt at that.

This little femme had no idea what she had just done to him, and he wasn't about to tell her when she woke up. There was no need for her to know that she had, inadvertently, found the most sensitive part of his anatomy. None whatsoever.

He settled himself into his space (after making sure to move her hand back to his neck) and allowed himself to calm down, making sure not to fall into stasis. He had to keep this holoform up, no matter how much he wanted to sleep. He hated the whimper she'd produced before, how helpless and defenseless she'd sounded. If there was anything he begrudgingly respected about the little femme sleeping in his arms, it was the strength and power she'd always shown, no matter what. He loved the fire she showed in her eyes, even in the face of creatures she couldn't even begin to fight against.

That had all disappeared. What had happened to them? What tortures had they gone through for ones so young to have the looks in their eyes that he hadn't gotten until he'd been fighting in a war for many of their lifetimes?

Did he even want to know? Did he want to look into her life? Did he care?

No, he couldn't care. She was a human. Getting attached as a friend, that was one thing. That was fine, but to look into her life, to admit that he wanted to know more about her than he had learned in the short conversations and arguments that they had had between one another, that was oh, so not fine. That was stepping, slowly, down a road he was not prepared to go. Just because Prime was willing to put his spark on the line for Tessa, not that either of them were going to admit it, didn't mean that he had to. It was suicide. They would die. It was not something that they could fight against. It wasn't something they could stop. She would die, and he'd had too many comrades die, he still remembered Chromia's hand reaching for his as she was thrown from the ledge by Soundwave. His lover, his friend. She had wanted to be his Sparkmate, and he had almost accepted. Something had held him back, though. He waited for that same feeling to overcome him as he thought of Selena, of being her friend, her lover.

It never came.


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: / Woo! Five pages! I think this is the longest chapter I've ever written, and it's basically, just filler.**

**This is the beginning of the Second movie, which I never actually saw. It shouldn't matter, though, as the girls are seeing this the same way Tessa was, from way off on the sidelines. It's just going to be harder for them because they have **_**history**_** with the Transformers and think they're perfectly capable of handling themselves.**

**Thank you, each and every one of you, for your reviews on the last two chapters. Sniff, I have such loving readers!**

**It seems Lawyer Dave wishes to say something. I can't understand you, Lawyer Dave. See if you can talk through the gag. He's having a few issues. I think he's telling me that I can't hold him and bay hostage in exchange for the rights to Transformers, which belongs to UlurNaga. Wait, wait! Now he's mumbling that UlurNaga does not own Transformers, just PrimMech and Tessa. Honestly, I don't see a difference between the two but, Lawyers. What are you goanna do?**

Selena wouldn't look Ironhide in the eye, or optics, depends on who you asked. After what would perpetually be known as, "The Spar", the two had avoided one another like the plague, Selena embarrassed about her break down, and Ironhide still unwilling to admit that he liked the idea of having her around.

Serena and Sideswipe, who had gotten over their mutual embarrassment within two days, thought it was almost comical to watch the lengths the two would go to avoid one another. The two became much closer after the spar, but neither had really talked about what had happened. Sideswipe knew that, sometimes, not talking about it was the only way to make something go away. He wasn't about to go prying in her life.

After some time, the two finally got back into their daily routine of arguing and glaring at one another from across the garage. By that time, though, they got some interesting news.

"You guys are going to Shanghai?" Selena asked, jumping from a rafter on the ceiling of a building and landing next to Lennox, who was in what was supposed to be a secure room, staring at a map.

That other soldiers, one of whom looked very decorated, stared at her in shock. "Selena," Lennox groaned, acknowledging that he was getting far too used to her falling from the ceiling than he should be. "What did we say about sneaking into secure buildings?"

"Ah," she argued, "The key word there is 'secure.' This is hardly secure. I got in in the first place, didn't I?"

He groaned again. "Just give your unwanted advice and go," he moaned.

Lennox was used to the girl and her two personalities: mature soldier/sister with more under her cap than any one man on his base and childish monkey running around doing whatever she wanted. It seemed that, after the spar, she needed to prove to everyone that she was fine. She hadn't been allowed to fight with anyone afterwards, but that didn't mean that she didn't go out of her way to make everyone acknowledge that she was just fine, adding another hundred pull ups, pushups, and crunches to her daily exercises and another two miles to her daily run, much to the dismay of her younger sister who, Lennox thought, didn't really care what the other people on base thought.

There was something sad about the two siblings. They had tried to find them, sure that they were from America, but they couldn't find a hit that they had ever existed. They weren't even sure if Selena or Serena were their actual names, though all the Bots had told them that their heart beats hadn't changed, so they were probably not lying.

Selena was always with Serena, unless Serena was with Sideswipe, and glaring at any male within fifty yards of the two. He couldn't he but think that that was the reason the younger sister seemed to be a bit younger than she seemed. Selena was spending all her time sheltering her from the world. He would hate to be there when she realized that she couldn't hide Serena always forever.

"That's . . . not the best place to be right now," Selena said vaguely, her eyes glazing over as memories assaulted her mind. "There are things going down there. I suggest you go in, take care of whatever it is, and leave."

"What is happening?" one of the other men asked. Selena recognized him from a briefing she'd sat in on as Galloway. He was very rude and blatant about his hatred of the Autobots, something that gritted on Selena's nerves. She didn't like all the Bots, especially Ironhide, but the ones she didn't like we're times better than him. "We let you stay here as a courtesy, if you know something-"

"First of all, I'm here against my will, still," she interrupted. Lennox glared at her, warning her not to step on any toes. "What?" she asked. "It's true. Second, even if I knew what was going on, I don't like you, so I don't have to tell you."

With that, she jumped onto the table and leapt onto the rafters jumping from beam to beam before hoping out a window to no one knew where.

John Keller laughed, is voice bellowing in the room. "I like that one."

SS

"Selena," Tessa's called, looking up from her work on Sideswipe's tires. "Get down from there before you break your neck dammit!"

"Do you know how much like a mother you sound right now?" Serena asked as her sister jumped from the rafters to the catwalk to the floor below to please the mechanic.

Tessa just shook her head and went back to her work. She worried for those girls almost as much as she worried for the Bots. At least the Autobots were the size of a small house and made of metal. Selena and Serena were so small. They looked like children playing at being soldiers, but, Tessa knew good and well, they weren't playing. After the spar, she had to admit that they were true soldiers, maybe more so than some of the new recruits on the base.

"Did you hear where they're going?" Selena asked, walking towards than and giving Serena a hug on the way to her regular seat next to Tessa.

"Yeah. I just talked to Lennox about it." It suddenly dawned on her that Lennox had no reason to tell Selena, but she still knew. "How exactly did you come about this bit of information?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at the girl in front of her.

"Now, now, Tessa," she said, smiling innocently. "Do you _really _need to know all the gory details?"

Tessa shook her head and went back to work, not bothering to answer. It seemed Selena was in a playful mood that day, which Tessa was glad for. She hadn't seen that side of her for a while, her childish moments only surfacing when she and Ironhide had begun their annual fights once again. Before that, it was a somber silence whenever she walked into the room, as if she still wasn't there.

"You're fine now, Sides," she said, taking a cloth and rubbing some of the oil and grim from her hands, not that it did very much. "I've got to go help Ratchet with 'Hide's cannons. Maybe he'll actually let me work on the fusion!"

The two sisters laughed at her giddy mood. They would never be able to comprehend Tessa's love for any and all things mechanical, which – though no one would tell it to her face—included a certain Peterbilt. The sisters had a basic knowledge of the workings of Cybertronians, cars, trucks, and tanks, but not exactly for the same reason Tessa did. When they used their knowledge, it was for a bit more sinister a nature.

After Tessa left, Selena looked to her sister and held back a sigh. She was completely enthralled with something Sideswipe was saying, her eyes wide and full of interest and a desire to listen to more. Selena remembered the few times she'd seen that look, each one directed towards her. Now she was always talking to Sideswipe. Selena wasn't jealous, far from it, but she was still unnerved by the Autobot's existence. She didn't want Serena getting too attached to them just yet.

When the story, whatever it was, was over, she signaled for them to go into the rafters to speak, knowing the other Bots had the decency not to eavesdrop.

"What's up?" Serena asked, genuinely confused. Selena had a strange look on her face. The last time she'd looked like that, she'd had to tell Serena that she'd killed a butcher that Serena had become "friends" with for reasons she still didn't understand.

"You and Sideswipe are getting along pretty well," she said casually, walking over to the far corner of the garage, her back facing the wall opposite of the door.

"He's . . . nice. Better than we usually run into." She dug her toe into the metal of the beam, worried about just where this was going. When Selena used that tone, that expression, it never boded well for any of Serena's current friends.

Serena knew that Selena would never do anything to hurt her and that everything that Selena did was focused around protecting her, but, sometimes, Selena wouldn't tell her why she was doing the things she did, and that scared her a little.

"You know we can't stay here forever, don't you?" She questioned, looking her younger sister in the eye. She wasn't trying to be the bad guy, she hated being the bad guy in Serena's eyes, but, if that's what she had to do to keep her safe, then she'd buy a fluffy white cat and get a British accent.

"That doesn't mean we can't get along with everyone," Serena mumbled. "You get along with Optimus and Tessa."

"Yes, and so do you, but neither of us make goo goo eyes at Optimus or Tessa." Serena blushed at the term. "Look, I'm not saying never talk to him again, but remember, one day, they're going to decide that we've been here long enough, and we'll go back home. Do you really want to make this any harder when it happens?"

Serena fought the urge to cry. "This is home," she whispered. "All our friends are here, and . . . I like being with them."

"I know," Selena said, coming over to hug her younger sister. "And I know that you don't want to leave anyone here, especially not Sideswipe, but, even if we stay here forever, they don't grow old, sweetie. Sideswipe will go on, but you and I won't last forever. They know that, too."

"Is that why you and Ironhide won't talk to each other?"

Selena frowned at the misdirection. She wasn't willing to get into her feeling about the large, black Bot, mostly because, after waking up next to him after the spar and several more months of noticing things about one another, she wasn't sure what she felt.

"We don't talk to each other because both of us have the ability to kill one another in our sleep, and are liable to do it one of these days." She pulled Serena out of her hug and looked her straight in the eye. "I'm not saying never speak to him again. I'm just asking you to, please, be careful. I don't think Optimus would be very happy with me if I wound up killing one of his men, Bots, Mechs, whatever!"

Serena giggled, glad that this wasn't a talk about how Selena was going to have to actually kill someone she actually liked for once. "Thanks, Sis. Love you lots."

"As you should," she answered proudly. "Now, go back down there before he comes up here to get you."

Serena smiled and, with another hug to her sister, she leapt, quietly landing on Sideswipes shoulder, something the two did often.

Selena sighed, watching over the two. This could go very badly. Serena was young for her age, and old at the same time. She'd done all she could to keep her from the world, and now it was slowly seeping in. She didn't know how to keep it out, or if she even needed to. She knew that the growing "friendship" between her sister and the mech below could be disastrous, but she wasn't sure if she should stop it. Would it be better for her to learn for the mistake, or should she just tell her to trust her again and do things on her own.

This was so much easier when she was a child and never questioned what her older sister said.

"Lennox or Optimus," she heard Ironhide jab from below as Tessa made her way towards the two at the front of the garage, probably talking about the upcoming mission. She didn't pay much attention to either of them until she saw a small shade of blue appear on his face. _Oh my God,_ she thought, moving across the metal beams to get a closer look. _Is he . . . blushing?_

Evidently, he was. Selena didn't know what Tessa had said, but she made a mental swear to ask her about it on another day. She dropped down just as Tessa ordered the rest of the Bots to stay safe on their trip. "Anything she just threatened you with," she said, walking next to them, "I will, personally, assist her with if you don't come home, got it?"

"I would like to remind you that we grew up in the land where men are torn apart by horses," Serena said. "And that was before we could just force you to watch Barney."

Selena smiled at them. "You come home, we have a victory feast of burgers and malts, someone gets drunk, and then we all get kidnapped by Russian monkeys."

Tessa shook her head. "On second thought, take me with you."


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: / I'm spoiling you guys, aren't I? I keep giving you these chapters so quickly! When I go back to school, you're going to hate me.**

This is slightly based off of the fact that Tessa also had a nightmare, but I want to make it very clear that Selena is not becoming an angsty character.

She already is.

I'm not kidding. Here, you'll see part of the reason why she's so fucked up. It's a valid reason too. After I wrote the dream sequence, I went over to my friends and said, "I'm the worst sadist ever." I honestly felt guilty for doing this to Selena and her sister and, now that I'm more sure about the exact details of what happened to them, even if none of you are finding out for a while, I feel like this horrible person for doing it. It's almost cruel.

I even let Lawyer Dave leave as an apology to the human race. Wait what is- Why the hell are you back? I thought- No, Bay is not allowed to leave until I get the rights to Transformers! I know I can't handle them! They're for UlurNaga. She's much- yes, I know she only owns Tessa, but, seeing as Tessa is part of the cannon OptimusXTessa- THOSE TWO ARE FUCKING CANNON! DO NOT ARGUE WITH ME INFIDEL!  


That night, Selena had nightmares. She ran through the darkness, not remembering what or who she was running from, and then she heard it: the sound of Ironhide's laughter somewhere ahead of her. "Ironhide? Dammit, Ironhide, where are you!" She sprinted towards him, but the closer she seemed to get from the origin of the noise, the farther away he seemed to go. "Ironhide? Slag it, Ironhide! I know you can hear me! Ironhide!"

She continued to run forward, desperate to reach him. She moved her feet as quickly as she could, but, eventually, she felt a familiar hand on her wrist, yanking her backwards until she fell onto the ground. She was pulled backwards until she couldn't hear the laughter of Ironhide anymore, but the sobbing of Serena. "Let go of me!" She cried out, unconsciously thrashing about in her bed. "Damn you, Gould! Let me go!"

A separate set of hands grabbed onto her and she felt herself being lifted and placed in a large tank, a tank she'd seen many times before. "No," she said, looking around herself fearfully as the lid of the tank began to close, trapping her inside. "No, stop! You can't do this! I'm a person! I'm human! Let me out!" Her screams fell on deaf ears as a strange, blue liquid began to fill the tank. "Stop, no! Please!" Her cries became pleading. "Don't do this, please. I'm begging you, don't do this!"

The liquid eventually went right over her head, cutting off her cries. She banged on the glass, her lungs beginning to burn from the lack of air. As she fought to free herself, a series of lasers, needles and knives came out of small holes in the walls of the tank. They came towards her, each one looking more foreboding than the last. Letting out the last of her air in a pointless scream, she rammed herself against the thick walls of the tank, desperate to get away from the terrible weapons inside.

As the first needle began to pierce her skin, she woke up in her room at the base.

Huffing, sweat pouring down her face, hair messy and ruined from the thrashing and crying, she tried to bring herself back. She curled into a ball, fighting to keep calm. She wasn't back there. She was at base. She was at base, where Lennox and Optimus and the others were . . . gone. To Shanghai. Where they were.

A part of her wanted to run to the nearest phone and warn them about what they might find there, but she didn't. What had happened to her and her sister was to stay between them and the others. They had no business in their lives. None of them. They had no right to know what had happened to them. To her.

Quietly, careful not to wake her sister who was sleeping far more softly than she had been, she slipped out of the room and slowly made her way to the garage, reminiscent of the last time she had made a trip there at this time. She had wound up trying to kill Lennox and some of his men. Perhaps this time would go a bit better.

When she finally reached there, she wasn't surprised to see it empty. She didn't know what she had been expecting. Tessa had long since gone home, and she'd been there when the Bots had left. She should have known better than to think they'd be waiting there for her, knowing she needed them.

No. She didn't need them. The only person shed ever needed was Serena, and she was right there. Everything else, she could do on her own. She was perfectly capable. She didn't need them. She didn't need anyone.

Still, she felt . . . better in the garage, where she could smell the scent of oil and energon, where she could feel the dirt and grime beneath her bare feet. Still, she didn't dare go back to sleep, knowing good and well that the dream would return until she had gone without sleep so long she passed out into a dreamless sleep, so she sat on her bench, next to the spot where Sideswipe would argue with Tessa after any of the crashes he had, and waited for the others to come back.

SS

Serena awoke the minute her sister left the room, and knew exactly what had made her leave. Selena had nightmares all the time, more than her. Serena had no idea why they'd been in the Middle East. By the time she became old enough to know, she and Selena had been traveling across the countries there for years, and Selena told her to just let it go and not ask again.

She remembered hands grabbing at her, she remembered other kids, though she couldn't see their faces, and she remembered, very clearly, her sister pushing her painfully against a wall with her body and screeching at someone to leave them alone.

She had been six when they left the states. That much she knew, which meant that Selena had been ten, and probably, if those nightmares were any indication, remembered every second of their time in . . . wherever they had been.

Serena wanted to be there for her sister, but she couldn't. The one time she had followed her after a nightmare, Selena had angrily sent her back to the room, shouting that she shouldn't be out there at night. Serena, who was twelve at the time, had been so shell shocked from her sister's tone that she had ran all the way back to her room and locked the door.

Selena hadn't remembered a thing the next day.

Serena thought about calling Tessa, but she didn't know her number. What was she supposed to say anyways? That she was afraid of her sister? That they had been kidnapped, and possibly tortured, as children and Selena was bearing the brunt of it all by herself? That she had no idea what to do? No.

Tessa would freak. Things wouldn't go well at all. Serena didn't doubt that she would be willing to go to the Middle East herself and give them something to think about. That was the last thing they needed.

Suddenly, she wished that Sideswipe was there. He would know what to do, and, if he didn't, he'd know how to make the whole thing look so much better than it was. That was his special talent. He could make everything better so easily.

She shook that thought away. That was not going to go well. She remembered her sisters warning clearly, and she understood it. Even being friends with the Autobots was inviting disaster, but she couldn't help it. There was just something about Sideswipe that made her feel comfortable around him, and she never felt comfortable around men. Ever.

This, of course, had nothing to do with the fact that he looked like a god in his holoform.

Serena sighed and rolled over. This wasn't helping at all. The bots were off fighting in a war she wished she never knew existed, Selena was going to be sleep deprived for the rest of the week, Tessa was falling for Optimus, which would end badly for one or both of them, and she was pretty sure that Selena was starting to reach her breaking point.

She could only shiver at the thought of what would happen when she reached it.


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: / Sweet Primus, this took a long time! In my defense, I ran into severe writers block half way through.**

A whole paragraph of thanks to UlurNaga, who, not only, gave us Tessa and PrimMech, but, also, saved my ass with this writer's block. The entire second part of this chapter is completely based on an outline she gave me when I asked her for help. Any and all compliments will be passed onto her, and, if you have the balls to insult it, I will hunt you down and end your life.

This definitely goes further into Selena's past and what happened to her when she was in . . . Wherever it was I put her, even I'm not really sure about that just yet. Also, it finally starts the end of the joke-hate relationship between her and Ironhide and, slowly, starts them down the love-hate relationship I've always wanted for them. Sniff. I'm so happy.

Again, so many thanks to UlurNaga for helping me past the writer's block. I owe you sooooooooooooo much!

For the next two days, Selena was quiet as a grave, never saying a word or moving an inch from her perch in the far corner of the rafters, facing the door was a tired look. Even Serena had to admit that it was strange that she didn't even keep up the pretence of sleeping, forgoing the facade completely in favour of sitting stoically in the corner, staring at the door as they all waited for the others to come back.

Even when they did, she didn't show any emotion, not relief, not happiness, nothing. Serena was fine with it, knowing she come out of it eventually, but Tessa, who hadn't been used to it, was silently panicking, wondering just what was wrong with the girl in the rafters.

Finally, they heard the call that there was an aircraft landing. Still stoic, Selena leapt down to the ground and joined the others as they came back, silent the whole while.

Tessa and Serena were quickly to welcome all the bots, Serena even going as far as to hug Sideswipe on sight, but Selena just stood in the background, her mind too far away to really care. Eventually, she snapped out of it enough to give them all a proper welcome, even kicking Ironhide in the tire as he drove by. Serena smiled. Her sister was coming back faster than before, and she knew that the Autobots had something to do with it.

It was far too late to be worrying about how they would deal with leaving now.

SS

Ironhide knew there was something wrong with Selena the minute he looked at her.

He didn't know what it was, but something had happened to her while they were gone. Though he tried to tell himself that he didn't care, the minute he got a glimpse at her hallow expression, his Spark raged inside him. Just what the hell had happened while he was gone?

More importantly, why did he care?

He hadn't even thought of the femme the entire trip, his mind completely focused on the job ahead on the way there, and on the men they'd lost on the way back. Looking at her, though, he had to wonder who had actually gone to war while they were gone.

SS

Selena was as somber at the small ceremony for those lost as she had been those past days, but not for the same reason. She didn't know these men, didn't know their families. She didn't even see a point in their deaths. They died from war. War is, always, pointless. Still, she had enough respect for the dead not to say this. They could have been good men; she didn't know.

So she stood there, her face made of the very stone beneath their feet. She looked next to her and saw Tessa speaking quietly to Optimus. She had to smile at the two. Sure, she would be the first one to point out to Tessa how wrong the relationship between the two of them could go, but that didn't mean she didn't have any hope for them at all. In fact, she hoped that they made it work. If anything, it would be proof that something along those lines could work.

Why did she want it to work?

For them, she instantly supplied. That was the only reason. It had nothing to do with Serena and Sideswipe, because that was just a small crush, and it had nothing to do with her and Ironhide, because that wasn't even there in the first place. Not at all.

She didn't care that he was strong. That was something she was used to, having been around men like Tyson and Gould all her life. It wasn't that he was nice because he was never nice to her. Except for the time he let you use him as a large pillow and mattress. She thought.

Her mind went in these circles over and over before she heard the voice of the very bot causing her so much trouble. "Oi, Tiny," he called, bringing her attention to him. "What's a matter? Got your aft kicked by your little sister while we were gone?"

She said eventually. "Leave it be."

Now he was annoyed. As much as he hated to admit it, he enjoyed his daily verbal spars with the small femme and Tessa, though the ones with Tessa were far less hostile. That she wasn't rising to the bait was frustrating. He wouldn't stand for it. The little glitch WOULD snap out of it, even if he had to snap her out of it himself.

"Optimus Prime," a soldier said, standing in front of the Peterbilt. "They're ready for you to prepare you announcement to the JCS."

The soldier saluted before he turned and walked away as Tess climbed down from the truck door. Selena raised an eyebrow at the action, having been so distracted, she'd completely zoned out form the conversation the two were having. "At risk of sounding…militarily unintelligent…" Tessa started, a pondering look on her face, "…what is the JCS?"

Ironhide was the one to answer her question as he rolled past, his window rolled down so she could hear him. "The JCS stands for Joint Chiefs of Staff. They run the operations at N.E.S.T; they're who Lennox and Epps report to." He revved his engine before continuing, "And don't concern yourself with your "military unintelligence" Squishy, we already knew you weren't very bright."

"Hey!"

"Careful Ironhide," Serena warned, walking over to them. "You forget, we like Tessa more than we like you. If it comes down to the two of you . . ."

Tessa looked at her and smiled. "I love you guys too!" She yanked the two into a large hug and the three femmes laughed heartily. Serena smiled. She knew very well that Selena wasn't back, and that she wasn't going to go back to sleep until absolutely needed, but, at least, she was coming back faster than before.

She was sure that it had everything to do with Ironhide.

SS

Selena had just finished saying goodbye to Tessa and Optimus, who were going to see the JCS, when Ironhide cut off her trek to the corner she'd been staying in. "Get in, Tiny. No arguments."

Normally, she would consider that an invitation to argue with him, but she was exhausted from the lack of sleep and food for the time. Serena had brought her bottles of water, but she hadn't been able to find a way to put any of the food in her mouth.

She climbed into the passenger seat and Ironhide knew something had happened while he was gone. He knew that he shouldn't care about what happened to her short of death, but he couldn't help it. He hated the idea of that fire he always saw in her disappearing.

"I'm going to ask this once," he said, still driving through the desert, neither of them with a destination in mind. "What the fuck happened?"

Selene was surprised by the wording. Usually, the Autobots only used curses from their planet, never earth. The fact that Ironhide was using them now was . . . worrying.

"It was nothing," she answered, still knowing he wouldn't take it, but wanting to say it anyways. Serena was determined to keep to her rule of having everything deep inside of her until they clawed their way out.

"Don't give me that Tiny!" he shouted.

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop carling me that, you overgrown blender? Just let it drop."

He was pleased that some of her old spark had returned, but it wasn't enough for his taste. He wanted a better fight than that, and he could tell he wasn't going to get it unless he pushed harder. That was the only reason he asked her again. "I'll stop calling you that when you slag well deserve not to be called Tiny. Now, what happened?"

Selena fought the urge to kill him. She honestly had to fight the urge to try and rip out random wires and see if that killed him. For so long, neither of them even talked, and, when they finally did star talking, it was to slam insults into one another! They didn't even like each other, so why was he pushing this issue? It was NONE of his business.

Ironhide, as well, was not keeping his temper under control. Why couldn't she be like other Tessa and just say what she wanted? Why didn't she have to be so uncontrollable?

"I'm just trying to figure out why you're glitching more than usual, you ungrateful femme!"

"You know what? I don't know why I'm dealing with you. Stop the stupid hunk of junk. I'll just walk!" In a fit of rage, she lifted her foot and did the stupidest thing one could do inside a giant robot in the form of a car: she kicked the windshield. Her foot connected angrily with the clear glass of the window in front of her.

All was silent in the car. The only proof she had ever kicked him being the pathetic THUD her foot had made when it collided with the clear, clean glass and the dirt footprint on the corner which looked suspiciously like the bottom of her boot.

"Do not do that again, Tiny," Ironhide growled dangerously, tightening the seatbelt on her strongly. He made sure not to actually hurt her. No matter how much she annoyed him, he never wanted to actually hurt her.

Selena gripped the seatbelt the minute he had tightened his grip and fought not to start to panic as she realised he had, in general, strapped her down. She pulled futilely against the strong fabric, her nails scratching against the threads of the strap that held her down. Logically, she knew he was only trying to keep her from kicking him again, but, internally, she was spazzing out greatly.

"Let me out," she ordered, yanking at the seatbelt, which tightened in retaliation. She tried to stop herself from going back, from feeling the same restraints in The Tank, from hearing the voices, from going back there again. She already had her monthly flash back; she didn't feel like having another one so soon.

"No."

"I said, let me go." her voice, though obviously an attempt at sounding commanding and intimidating, wasn't near as frightening as it had once been, as Ironhide could tell there was a bit of strain underneath her tone.

Now, he was getting somewhere, pushing the buttons he wanted to push. "No."

Had he been human, he would have smirked at her, just to make sure he could get the rise that he wanted. He hadn't expected what his tone alone would have done to her.

It had taken her back too far, back to her first time in The Tank. Her arms were being strapped down by large men with red, glowing eyes. A strange man they called 'Scalpel' shone a light in her eye, checking that she was responsive. She remembered the others who had left, the ones who hadn't come back. If she didn't come back, who would take care of Serena? She asked him to let her go, her voice hoarse and scratchy from the lack of water. "No," he had answered, his voice and tone disturbingly alike to the one Ironhide had used seconds before.

The fit started faster than any one thought possible. "I said let go of me god dammit!"

Selena flung herself back and forth, flailing about wildly, and her legs slamming furiously into the doors, the windshield, and anything else they could reach. Her nails dug into the fabric of the seat below her. Her head lifted and slammed back down, her back arched as she tried to break the restraints that were now holding her down more to protect her from herself than to keep her from kicking him, as that idea had long since been forgotten.

"Son of a trucker's whore," she cried out, adding it to the curses and shouts she had been stringing together for Primus knew how long. Ironhide had never heard most of the curses she used! She just kept thrashing about, yelling at him to let her go. Had he not been so afraid if what she would wind up doing to herself in this state, he might have, but he thought it was obvious that the little femme had become more insane than she was in a normal basis. In his attempt to bring her back to normal, he'd made things so much worse.

For almost five minutes, he held strong, making sure to hold her down and keep her from hurting herself. Then she had cried out, almost frantically, "Stop! Please, stop it!" He used the rear view to look at her and what he saw made would have made him stop in shock had he still been driving.

She was crying.

Not the type of crying she had done before, where she was sobbing uncontrollably, but a small amount of tears falling slowly from her eyes. He wasn't even sure if she even knew she was crying, as she was still just demanding that he stop and let her out.

He had learned from the last time, though: he simply could not handle the femmes tears, so he did the only thing he could think of to make her stop. He released her from the hold of her seatbelt and opened the door so she could roll out.

She just sat there, curled into a small ball, crying into the sand of the dirt beneath them. Her head was firmly between her knees and her hands were pressing into her spine, trying to curl further into a ball than she had before.

That was when he noticed it, that position, the look in her eyes; he'd seen it all, before. In one of the soldiers. He had gotten into war far before he should have, and lost everyone in his regiment right in front of him. Every cycle or so, he'd wake up in from stasis, thinking he was still in that battle hiding in the small space one of his friends had shoved him into before they were cut down by Megatron himself.

Now that he understood, he knew how to get her back, get that fire in her eyes back.

He transformed into his bipedal mode, still completely detesting the mere idea of using the holoform for anything short of an emergency. "Get up," he told her, standing tall above her. "Dammit, soldier, I expect better from you, now get up!"

Confused and still having half her brain in the last, she looked up at him, confused. "W-What?"

He hated how she looked. He had never seen her so broken. The last time she'd cried in front of him, her hair had been firmly tied into a bun and she had had time in her sleep to recuperate, so she looked a little haggard, but fine. Now, however, she looked terrible. Her eyes were an unnatural shade of pink, contrasting greatly with her now red nose, which, thankfully, hadn't begun to run just yet. Her hair had completely fallen out of its messy pony tail while she had been thrashing around, and curling into a ball so that it was emerged in dirt hardly helped it. She didn't look like the spit fire who had stared him down and, literally, kicked his cannons to the side the first time he'd pointed them at her. She looked like a small, weak femme, something he knew she wasn't. It bothered him more than he liked to admit.

He prayed, something he didn't do often, that this particular tactic would go better than his earlier attempts, which, he was willing to admit, had lead to their current predicament. Tessa had told him, once, that most femmes on this planet like comforting gestures when they were as upset as Selena seemed, but comforting was something he just couldn't do. Commanding, however was right up his ally.

"You heard me, soldier. I said get up, slag it! I thought it would take more than some little memory to take you out, but I see I was wrong."

Had she been coherent, Selena would have easily been able to tell just what he was doing, and, if she was honest, she would have been grateful for the attempt at reverse psychology to get her back. As she wasn't thinking coherently, though, she played right into his hands.

Standing carefully, wobbling a bit as her knees demanded they be allowed to cave in on themselves despite her orders otherwise, she glared at him. "I don't take orders from you," she said, looking far more proud in that moment than she ever had.

Ironhide refused to admit that, in that moment, with her hair matted and frayed in the wind, her eyes still as pink as her nose, her skin leathery and stretched from the wet tears she had earlier, patches of dirt colouring pieces of her flawless skin, and the sleeve of her in incredibly oversized tank top slipping off her shoulder from the fight, she looked more beautiful than anything he'd ever seen.

Because he didn't think that. Not at all.

He had expected, hoped, that she would retaliate. What he hadn't expected was her sudden climb up the side of his leg, over his arm, across his shoulder, and right in front of his face, grabbing onto a piece of helmet. She glared at him, her own dim blue eyes boring into his neon blue optics. "I don't take orders from you."

"Finally," he muttered gruffly, the words sounding louder to her now that she was right next to the source. "Now, let's get you back to base."

SS

They had been driving for a while. Neither had really noticed that they had gone so far from base until they had to silently ride back. Ironhide didn't know what to say to the little femme who was now resting in his three seats, her head right in front of the AC, and Selena was too embarrassed to say anything at all, even if she knew what to say.

Of all the people in the world to have a flash back in front of, her mind said that Ironhide would be the first one.

Which, considering the fact that they had managed to get past it faster than she ever had in her life, was the right call. Still, she didn't like the way she felt around him now. It wasn't a feeling she was used to. Normally, she was only annoyed at him, but now, feeling the small vibrations he was causing in the seats to keep her calm, she felt . . . safe.

Suddenly, she had an idea. Normally, she would have brushed it off, but, that day, she wasn't really in her right mind. That was, later, her excuse for asking the large, black robot: "Can you feel this?" As she spoke, she rubbed circles into the fabric underneath her.

He had to stop himself from shivering as he felt her fingers, so tiny for someone so strong, rubbing into his cybertronian equivalent of skin. Reluctantly, he swallowed any emotion that would have come out of his mouth and, monotony answered. "Yes."

Smiling, Selena lifted up and gave him a kiss on the leather of the passenger seat. "Thank you," she whispered. "I needed that."

Had he been in bipedal form, he would have blushed. Now, both of them had to admit there was something different going on, but they didn't have to admit it out loud, did they?

"Just go to sleep," he grumbled as he tried not to read too much into it. She obviously, wasn't thinking straight and needed to sleep the whole thing off.

So she did.


	11. Chapter 11

**Really fast chapter. I'm sorry, but I hate this entire ROTF arc. I didn't really like the few bits of the movie I saw, compared to the other two, and I just . . . Optimus died, man. Do I even need to explain any of this to any of you. Our loving, kind, diplomatic Optimus dies!**

**Not really lot to say about this, and I don't feel like arguing with Lawyer Dave about rights, so everything belongs to UlurNaga and I have Dance Rehearsal coming up in ten minutes so I have to go!**

When Selena woke up, everyone was in a frenzy. The tell-tale headache she felt on her temples told her, easily, that she had suffered from another of her famous flash backs and wound up crying. How she had managed to get into her bed, though, she couldn't remember. Until she honestly forced herself t remember where she had been before she'd managed to pass out completely.

The minute she did, she wished that she hadn't.

Ironhide. Of all the people she had to seem weak in front of, it had to be Ironhide, so . . . where was he? "Serena," she called getting over to the garage, her head still pounding. "Serena, sweetie, what's going on, and where is everyone?" She stopped as soon as she saw the small gash in her sister's head. The second the small bit of blood on her forehead cam into her sight, Selena's eyes narrowed and her face became red with rage. "Who do I kill?" She asked, stalking over to her sister and taking a look at the small gash. It wasn't life threatening, but Selena had a track record and a reputation to keep up. No one, but no one, eve hurt he little sister to any degree, emotionally or physically, and lived for long. How had Sideswipe let this happen?

"The others left when they found out that some Decepticon took the last piece of something called an AllSpark Shard," she answered. "I was sitting on the beam in the corner when I saw a picture of it." She pointed to the large screen to the side, which showed a small piece of metal with hauntingly familiar writing on it. "When I recognized the symbols, I fell out and wound up scrapping myself up a bit. Thankfully, nobody noticed."

Together, they pulled out two small, boxes held onto a chain. Once opening them, they showed to hold two pieces of metal with similar markings on them. "They're the same," Selena whispered, holding her own up to the piece.

"Not possible," Serena argued. "Mama gave these to us when we were babies. That's from the AllSpark. Sideswipe said that Optimus and this boy, Sam, destroyed it years ago. About two years ago to be right. Before that, it was whole." They both put their metal pieces back in their respective boxes and stared at the Spark Shard on the screen in front of them. "We should tell Optimus."

"No," Selena ordered harshly. "Mami was specific: we tell no one of what we hold. Never." She saw Serena wither at the thought of lying to the others, though they weren't exactly telling them everything, hiding the fact that they may have something that could help bring back their race bothered her. Sideswipe was so hurt by the thought that they might die out all together, and they idea of hiding this from him made her shiver.

By now, Serena was willing to admit, despite her sister's attempts at stopping it, she was head over heels for the Corvette, and she wasn't sure if she could go back now, not that any of the other girls in the small human trio that was usually in the garage could blame her. She'd overheard Optimus and Tessa before they'd left. Both of them were seconds away from jumping one another, and, after a very long drive with Ironhide, Selena was better than she'd ever been before, even if she wasn't going to admit it to anyone.

"Where's Tessa, then?" Selena asked, looking around. There was no way that Optimus let her anywhere near a dangerous place where they could get killed. None whatsoever. She had to have either gone home or be somewhere on base. The second was far more likely, as, Selena knew, Tessa worried over Optimus like an army wife.

"Over here," she said, walking over to the two. "I see you finally woke up. When Ironhide bought you over here, we thought he'd knocked you out in a fight, you were so deep asleep." She shook her head. "You're normally such a light sleeper. What happened?"

"I'll go into it when this whole AllSpark issue is dealt with," Selena lied, knowing well that she wasn't going to talk about it with anyone ever. "For now, I hear a certain truck, and I'm willing to bet he wants to see you."

Tessa smiled, sure that the younger girl had used the Peterbilt's introduction as a way of keeping both her and her sister from asking just what had happened while she was gone with Ironhide. "Oh, I'll go," she said, "But don't think, for one second, that this is over." With that, she walked over to her Prime, intent on finding out how everything had gone.

"Not one word," Selena cautioned her sister as she began her way over to the silver sports car.

"I know," She answered. Of all the times in her life, the only person Serena thought Selena loved more than her was their Mami, as Selena liked to call her. If Mami told them not to say anything about the metal and Serena said something anyways, she was sure that Selena may never speak to her again. She'd still protect and love her, but she'd never forgive her for ignoring their Mami's final wish.

Sure that her sister would obey her, Selena walked over to Ironhide, noting that he looked furious at something other than her. That just wouldn't do. "What's a matter, toaster?" she asked, walking up next to him. "Got sand in your fuel tank?"

Her playful glib wasn't as playfully retorted as she had hoped it would be. "Sam has decided he will not stand by us," h said eventually. "He intends to turn his back on all of this. On the war, on Prime . . ."

"On you," she finished for him, understanding. He had helped her that morning. It was time for her to return the favor. "Now you're angry with him because he's afraid. You can't blame him; he's just a kid!" She made a small calculation in her head. "He's only a few months older than Serena!"

"He is still a part of this war," Ironhide growled. "He is still one of us. He cannot just turn away!"

"Yes, he can! He is a frightened boy terrified of a war he can't hope t compete in, and, obviously, he wants to walk away from it! It's a human mentality! Something with the ability to kill you is in font of you, you turn around and walk away from it."

"There are soldiers dying here. He is needed!"

"That doesn't mean he has to do it! That's a part of working with humans, Ironhide: you have to accept that, sometimes, you will over- or underestimate people! You underestimated me when we first met, and you've overestimated Sam. Accept it and find another plan!"

"There is no other plan!"

"Then think of one!"

As they continued to argue, blood and energon rushing through both of them, Selena had climbed up his side and gone right in front of his face, this spot, she decided, she liked best for their arguments. It wasn't until they both recognized how lose their faces were, though, they were already close considering the fact that she had to hold onto his helmet to stay on the small chest plate in front of him.

Huffing from the argument, Selena, the first to look away, sat on his shoulder. "You cannot make him fight, Ironhide. You have to accept that."

Before he could argue with her more, Selena heard the sound of him communicating with the others. "I have to go," he said, lifting her up before gently putting her onto the ground. "You must stay here. They will be going after Sam whether he wants to be a part of this war or not."

"Wait," Selena called before he drove off.

"What now, slag it. I cannot-"

"Come back safe, understood?"

Had he been in bipedal mode, he would have smiled. "I don't take orders from you." With that, he drove off, leaving a trail of dust and a very confused girl behind him.


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: / Oh my god! I'm soooooooo sorry! I thought that, after school ended, I'd be able to update sooner, and then a lot of things happened and it kept me from having ANY ideas on what I was going to do with this. I'M SO SORRY, I promise, I meant to update sooner, but, three days ago I went to my friend's eighteenth birthday and . . . I just woke up.**

Don't ask.

As I've already said, I really hate this entire arc. Sure, it's starting the relationship between Ironhide and Selena (I have been waiting for this for so long) but I still don't like it. It's very annoying and depressing to me, as I don't really like how it happened. I'm probably going to end it all in the next chapter, thank god.

I will admit, though, it's probably worse for Selena and Serena than it is for Tessa. Tessa can't fight and isn't used to war, so she understands why they're leaving her behind, Selena and Serena can fight, but they're still left behind as if they can't. See how it would kill any normal person.

Also, I admit right now that I took Tessa's spazz fit directly from UlurNaga, who, coincidently, owns everything other than-"Hold it!". . . Lawyer Dave? How'd you manage to get an actual voice- "How'd you manage to steal the rights from Mr. Bay, again?" uhhhh, let's start the chapter, shall we? "THIS IS NOT OVER!"

Tessa had left with the others to go and help Optimus and the others. Serena and Selena had been ordered to remain back on base and wait for word. "I've got to look after Tessa," Lennox had said when Selena pointed out that they wanted to go too. "That alone is going to get me killed by Optimus; he's not going to like it if I take you both too. Just stay here and wait."

So, begrudgingly, they did just that. They sat and waited for there to be word of their safe arrival, surely, nothing had gone wrong. Optimus would beat anyone who came near them, yell at Tessa for leaving base to go to the middle of the fighting, and Ironhide would complain about a lack of action. That would be the end of it. Then, when he came back, he and Selena would resume their argument.

Then she'd heard two of the lieutenants, new to the base talking. "They lost one of those robots on their way here," he said. "One of those big ones with the guns I think."

Selena's heart sank. They all had guns, but none of the Autobots used their guns and cannons as much as Ironhide. Slowly stumbling over to a seat far away from anyone's notice, she sank onto the floor. She couldn't breathe.

She'd lost people to the world of war before. She wasn't deaf to the whole thing, but this was IRONHIDE. Somehow, she had managed to convince herself that the Autobots were invincible, but, maybe, that had something to do with the fact that she'd had such a HARD time killing the Cons she'd seen in the Middle East.

Tessa would be crushed; Serena was probably going to cry, and Selena? She was going to go on a rampage.

It's how she dealt with grief. Don't judge.

Just WHAT is wrong with you, she thought to herself, getting up. It's just Ironhide, JUST Ironhide. He was infuriating. You HATE infuriating people! Snap out of it!

No matter what she said to herself, though, she couldn't help but think that something would just be WRONG when the others came back without him, something sickeningly wrong.

Which, probably, was the reason why she was so reluctant to go and welcome them back until she realized that Tessa, who was NOT used to the death that came from the hatred of war, would need as many people around when she got back.

What she saw out there, she hadn't expected.

There were two sides to the feelings she felt and they battled madly as they tried to blend properly into one emotion that probably didn't exist. On the one hand, Ironhide was perfectly fine, if a little worse for the ware, pulling feelings from her chest that made her want to cry in relief.

On the other hand, Optimus was dead.

Tessa was standing beside his . . . body, her face solemn and grim. She also looked . . . empty, as if something had, literally, been ripped out of her. In that moment, Selena regretted every worried thought she'd ever had of their relationship. It may not have been normal, but this was the very thing she had feared would happen to the two of them: one of them would leave the other, alone forever. She had never thought that it would be Tessa who would be left behind.

"Don't cry," Selena whispered to Serena as they walked over. "Tessa needs all the help she can get. We can't afford-"

"Selena," she interrupted, looking at her sister, understanding. "It's Optimus. I-I think its okay. Just this once?" Despite the pleading tone to her voice, as if she was asking permission to cry, Serena had already begun to.

She'd seen people die, hell, she'd killed some of them. It was something she had become used to in her profession, but they'd been terrible people who had deserved it, or so Selena had told her, and she had only known a few of them, but this was different now. Optimus was a good . . . mech. He deserved better; Tessa deserved better. They were both so good. Why did those cons have to ruin it the same way they ruined everything.

"Alright," Selena relented, pulling her sister to her as she cried into her shoulder. "We'll all be fine. We'll all be just fine. We'll be fine." She slowly rocked her sister from side to side, standing in the middle of the entrance to the garage.

That was when Selena felt it: the world slipping into their small haven. For years, she'd kept her sister in this small world, surrounded by high walls. Sure, every now and then, some of the world outside would seep through small cracks, now more so than before, but she'd been able to quickly shove a towel into those cracks and keep them away. Now, however, she wasn't sure how to keep this particular part of the world away from them.

Eventually, Sideswipe walked over to the two. He hadn't spoken since Prime had died. He had merely been looking forward to seeing Serena before, now he was desperate to see her smile, to hear her laugh. He needed to be reminded why he kept fighting in such a despicable war when it had already taken so much from him. She could do that; she could bring a bit more light into his world.

Instead, he found her sobbing into her sister's chest. Her strong, fearless sister, who seemed indestructible, was also tearing up at the news of Prime's death. Neither seemed to be taking it any better than Tessa had been for the trip. At that exact moment, she was crying next to his body, demanding that he wake up and quit playing around.

Then that fool Galloway opened his mouth.

Selena didn't pay attention to what he was saying, but she got the basics of it all: his mother never hugged I'm as a child, so he was planning on taking it out on the entire human race, starting with them. He waved around some piece of paper, saying he had "Operational command" or something of the ilk. Either way, he was still being an ass for the sake of being an ass, something that pissed Selena off to no degree.

"You even waste our resources on a couple of orphan brats in the middle of the desert," he barked, gesturing to Selena and Serena. "Ungrateful ones too!"

"We're grateful," Selena said, far too calmly. "To the Autobots and Lennox's team. If you, however, call my sister a 'brat' again, I'm not responsible for what happens."

He scoffed at her and then went back to yelling at Lennox about how there was a war on their shores and Selena had to bite back a laugh. This little man had no idea what he was talking about. She'd seen the cons, without the bots, this wouldn't be a war; it would be a very large massacre.

Without Prime, it might still be.

Selena rubbed the space between Serena's shoulder blades, trying to comfort her. The younger of the two sisters was shaking with the effort it took not to leap on the man in front of her and beat him senseless. The fool had no idea what he was talking about! If Prime were there, he wouldn't have had the balls to say something like this, but that was the problem, wasn't it? Prime WASN'T there, so it was up to them.

They kept their tempers in check, zoning him out to do multiplication tables in an attempt to keep their minds off of the useless words that were coming out of this little man's mouth. Until he, certainly Bit off far more than he could chew.

"And take that pile of scrap metal back to Diego Garcia."

BANG!

Before any of them could have blinked, even Selena or Serena, Tessa had thrown her full weight into Galloway, causing him to collide with the side of the vehicle; before she seized the back of his expensive suit collar and pulled backwards with all her strength. He brutally landed flat on his back with the expression of a kicked puppy; with Tess standing over him wearing an expression of pure murder.

Selena was almost proud of the look on her face. She looked like some very pure angle of DEATH! She'd never seen Tessa so furious, and it must have said something about her feelings about Prime that she did it only for his sake. Still, Tessa was hardly the only one pissed at the little man's words.

"What did you just call him?" Selena demanded. She planned to go into an entire tirade, but Tessa beat her to it.

"You limp dicked, pencil pushing, ignorant FUCK!" she screamed violently, her auburn brown hair glowing like pure raging fire in the late sun; her eyes ablaze with blind fury, "That fucking scrap metal gave up his life for people like you! If you EVER disrespect him like that again; I will rip your nut sac off like a fucking paper towel! Do you understand me, you ass kissing, son of bitch!"

Selena was almost surprised by the reaction Tessa had had. Sure, she'd known that the mechanic was angry, but she used to spend whole days thinking of intricate threats, and she'd never come up with anything that violent and angry. She was almost proud of her.

The two sisters watched as the other soldiers held Tessa back from hitting him again, trying, uselessly, to keep her from hitting the tiny man once again.

While they tried to calm her down, Galloway also shouted at her. "You'll regret that, you little grease monkey!"

That was too much for Selena. Leaving her sister behind for a moment, she walked up to the now staggering politician and planted a round house kick right to his groin.

"I'm going to say this once," she said, now standing over him. "Take your ideas and your stupid, little piece of meaningless paper and go fuck yourself, backwards, in hell, with a wooden spoon you pathetic, tiny dick head."

"Let's go," he said angrily, still clutching what little junk he must have had as he stumbled to the car and drove off.

When Selena looked back at the others, she saw Tessa crying and, immediately, the sisters crowded around her in an attempt to calm her down. "We got her," Selena said to Lennox and Epps.

They heard her say she wanted to go near Optimus, and they carefully walked her over to the . . . body. "Ironhide," she heard Ratchet say to the large, black mech. "We should leave this planet."

Not taking of the consequences, Selena whipped her head around and looked at the two mechs, more specifically, Ironhide. Rationally, she said it was for Tessa. The poor woman would manage to handle loosing Prime and then all the others as well, especially with how close they'd all become. Emotionally . . . well, she'd never really put much thought into her emotions towards the bots, so it didn't really matter, did it?

Right?

Either way, she looked at Ironhide and prayed he got her message. Sure, Galloway and his ilk didn't want them there, but what human beings want isn't always what they need, and the world needed the Autobots, now more than ever. Tessa needed them, Serena needed them, everyone needed them. If Selena understood what little shed managed to hear from the troops over Tessa's crying, then Megatron was back.

Selena had never had the terror of meeting the large monster, but she'd heard enough about him while listening to his subordinates. He was their Optimus Prime. Without him, they were disorganized and confused, with him. . . .

They could, honestly, destroy the world.

Selena knew what that would mean, knew what would happen. She'd seen, first hand, just how much the human populace meant to these creatures: absolutely nothing at all. They'd kill them all if it merely amused them, though a few would be kept for pets.

"Tiny," Ironhide called, pulling her from her reprieve. She'd come back in the garage and handed Serena, who was exhausted, over to Sideswipe. The look she had give the holoform over her sister's head made it clear that, while she was trusting him with the safety of her little sister, she still didn't like the idea of the two getting too attached.

She had no choice, though. She had to keep an eye on Tessa, who was now laying on Optimus's chest, but keep Serena close, and she was about to fall asleep on her feet. Her only option was to let the holoform lead her to the back seat of the mech and lie her down to sleep on the soft fabric of the seats before fizzling, that was the only word she could think of to describe the creation and destruction of the holoforms, completely and closing his door behind her.

"What now, blender?" she snapped. That was her way of grief- get angry, kill something, break lots of things, scream, and then calm down and everything would be better.

"Don't start today Tiny," the mech growled. "I'm not in the mood."

"Does it look like I am?"

The question stopped the large Bot. He looked at her and was reminded of their fight in the desert. Her hair was, once again, messy and frayed, her clothes were wrinkled and wet from Tessa's earlier crying, and he could see that she, too, had cried for their leader sometime since she'd heard the news, though he hadn't known when.

He felt a bit more respect for her for that. She may be an infuriating and annoying little femme, but even she knew how much Prime had meant to bother their worlds.

"Doesn't matter. We need to have a talk."

"Do you not remember what happened the last time we 'needed to talk'?" she asked, looking at him.

Oh, he remembered. He remembered that particular incident quite well. Stubbornly, he had tried to push it from his mind, to think of it as nothing Marie than a foolish act of sympathy on his part, but, in the end, the image of her, huffing angrily, shakily glaring at him from her spot far below his eyes, still haunted him, even in stasis.

He was becoming unnaturally attached to the femme, and he didn't like it one bit.

"We need to know where you saw the cons," he said evenly, trying to keep a reign on his own emotions. "If we know where they were-"

"Shanghai," she said, stopping him. "We met them in shanghai. We had a few run ins with some random ones all over, nothing big. You guys already took out the cell we knew about."

"Slag it!" Ironhide bellowed. Selena was glad that, as they'd begun to talk, they had walked into a small sort of alleyway beside the garage. "Then what in the name of Primus do they want?"

"They wanted to kill Optimus," she answered. "They're hoping that, without him, you'll all end up exactly like they did when they lost Megatron: lost, confused. They think that, by attacking him, they've gotten a small window to destroy you while you all scramble to do something."

Ironhide looked at the small femme in shock before frowning. She was very young, far too young to get the tactics of things as evil and despicable as Decepticons. How did she understand them so well, just what was her connection to the cons from Shanghai? They'd found proof of something more sinister behind what scalpel and his minions were doing, but they were still trying to decipher the code used in the notes that Scalpel had left behind. Could Selena know what had happened?

Bah, he didn't have time for this! He had to make a plan of attack and avenge Prime, not think about the life of some puny femme he didn't care about. Because he didn't care about her. Not at all. He didn't like the way she would stand up for herself. He didn't like the way she would be the only one besides Tessa who could actually argue with him. He didn't like the way that she would just laugh off his threats when he would pull it his cannons. He didn't like her.

Alright, even he had to admit he was in denial at that point.

Still, she hated him with a fiery passion. He'd have time to delve into his thoughts on the girl later.  
Bottom of Form


	13. Chapter 13

**AN: / Finally! It ends! The arc finally ends! The horrible, least favorite arc ends! Now I can start on the one I've been **_**waiting **_**to write!**

**Ironhide also admits his feelings! To himself, at least. I really thought that he would be the first to admit that there is **_**some **_**sort of attraction between the two because he actually has a Spark and, from what I can tell, Sparks do not care what you rationally want, they care what you want emotionally, especially when it comes to love, and those two are starting down that path, which **_**should **_**end sometime in the next arc if everything goes to plan!**

**I hope these two chapters make up for my long absence lately!**

**Also, a lot of people have shown worries about the whole All Spark shards thing. Let me make this very clear: SELENA AND SERENA ARE HUMAN. They will remain so forever, with little, if any, change to their DNA. There is a very logical and practical reason for me giving them shards of metal that LOOK like All Spark Shards to them because they can't really reads cybertronian, now can they?**

**I own nothing but Selena and Serena and some of the parts they are involved in. The rest belongs to UlurNaga. Hmm? What? Lawyer Dave seems to want to say something, but I've been water boarding him and Bay as punishment for taking the rights from me before I could give them to UlurNaga again, even though she's a better writer, gave us Tessa, and is just, generally, better. Ah well, when have I ever listened to him?**

Selena hadn't slept that night. She doubted anyone had. She saw Jolt practically drag Tessa from Optimus to Ironhide, who let her sleep in him for the night. Unbidden, memories of the night after her soar with Serena came back in full force, and Selena was tempted to slap herself. One of the greatest beings to ever walk this earth had died and her best friend, though the term seemed inadequate considering everything, was going through, possibly, the most painful time of her life, and she was thinking of that stupid Mech. She had much better things to do!

She just couldn't think of any of them at the time.

Sighing, Selena decided that, in light of the day's revelations and tribulations, she could allow herself a small amount of comfort in someone else's presence. It had nothing to do with her now disproven thoughts that Ironhide had died. It didn't involve her relief that she had been proven wrong. It didn't involve the fact that, after their day in the desert, his presence, while still annoying and frustrating, also held a bit of comfort to it. Not at all, because none of it mattered. Not one part.

If Serena knew what her sister was thinking, she'd tell her she was in denial, but she wasn't. Selena was being smart. She saw, clearly, what loving Optimus had done to Tessa, though the Mech could hardly be blamed for his own death, and knew that she wouldn't have the same thing happen to her. Love, while good with family and friends, should never extend further than just that. Anything else left you wide open from attack from _anyone. _Not just that one person, but others. She didn't have the luxury of leaving that space open. She had a sister to take care of, and she'd been doing a damn good job about it this long, she wasn't going to screw it all up because of some random Mech!

No, he had nothing to do with this!

She had to stop thinking of him, which was going to be difficult, seeing as she had sat next to his alt mode, resting her head against the cold metal, which, surprisingly, no longer felt cold, but warm. In fact, it wasn't just warm, it was also . . . vibrating?

Was he trying to help her sleep?

The little femme was going to be the death of him. Ironhide knew it. Instead of sleeping, like her sister or Tessa, who was resting fitfully where Selena had once slept, she had paced for a few hours before sitting next to him, quietly resting her head against his side. He could see the need for sleep in her eyes, just as the others had seen it in Tessa. The femme needed to sleep, so why was she so stubbornly staying awake? Why was she pushing herself so far? Why was it that her pushing herself to the limit annoyed him more than it should have, almost to the point of anger? She wasn't his charge, and it wasn't like he actually _cared _for the little glitch.

His Spark rumbled furiously at the idea, and he sighed internally. Alright, fine, he was stubborn, but not so stubborn to deny his Spark when it was being so obvious in its affections. His Spark wanted her and, to a degree, he could agree. She was strong, understood war, and wasn't afraid of him. The few times he had ever gone out in public in his holoform, the other femmes, and even some males, had been almost frightened of him. She had stood her ground, telling him exactly what she thought. She wasn't conniving and deceptive like many of the femmes he'd met, but she wasn't as truthful as Tessa, keeping her secrets just that: her secrets. He had to respect her for that. What weighed on her could not have been easy, and, instead of winning about it to others, she bit her lip and moved on, carrying everything on her own, lifting her own weighed high above her head instead of dropping it on anyone else.

She was still insufferable, what with her need to argue with him at every turn and fight with him in completely unnecessary battles that meant nothing to either of them, but now he had to admit, he enjoyed their little verbal sparring sessions – once they were over.

It wasn't until he was pulled from his thoughts by her movement that he realized that, after noticing that she wasn't sleeping, he had begun to try and comfort her as well as he could without waking Tessa. He had warmed the metal she had laid on and was actually moving the door so that she would clam and sleep. Looking at her now, he was surprised that it had worked. The girl was now sleeping soundly, resting against him as if it was where she was meant to be.

His Spark purred at the thought. He . . . didn't shiver in disgust at the idea. That was a large leap for him. If she wanted anything more, she would have to wait and live with what she got, if she even wanted him at all.

The thought had crossed his mind, but he had refused to think on it. While Serena and Sideswipe and Tessa and Optimus (he thought of the second couple with a slight sting) were quite happy with their own love lives, Selena might not agree with his new infatuation. That would certainly cause a problem if he got too attached. They'd have to deal with this soon, or risk them being caught in a situation neither of them could really control.

SS

The next morning, she still hadn't woken up. "She hasn't slept lately," Serena told them. She had crawled out of Sideswipe, still exhausted emotionally, but far more rested than her sister, who was curled next to Ironhide as he continued to warm her through his metal. "Can you just . . . let her sleep, just for a little while longer?"

Even if she hadn't looked at him with those large, blue eyes that were so much like her sister it was almost frightening, he would have done it and been happy to. At least when she was sleeping they weren't liable to try and kill one another in an argument.

Carefully, while Tessa was talking to Lennox, he picked up the small femme and laid her onto the leather. She had moved once or twice, making herself comfortable before falling back into her clam, restful sleep.

He couldn't tell her about the plan. She had become . . . attached to Optimus. He didn't want to know what would happen if it didn't work.

SS

Selena awoke from her sleep to the angry shaking of Ironhide. "Tiny! Get up, dammit! We've got to move!" She looked around, her vision slightly blurred at the edges as she tried to bring herself back to the real world, refusing to acknowledge exactly what she had been seeing in her long dream that had made her feel so comfortable and complacent.

No, her dream of the Mech she was, apparently, sleeping in was not comforting at all.

"What's going on?" she asked, moving from the small space she had been in to see that everyone was in a panic, running towards the opening at the end of the plane. When the hell had they gotten on the plane? What was the alarm going off all around them?

Where was her sister?

"Serena," she called out. "Serena, where are you?" Still no answer. Now she was getting more and more worried. "SERENA!"

"She already left," Lennox shouted over the alarm going off. "She tried to wake you up, but we said we had it."

"Dammit, Lennox," she said, strapping the parachute to herself. "Next time my sister wants to plunge herself out of a large plane thousands of feet above the ground –" she grabbed him by the collar and pulled him off of the floor " – wake me the fuck up."

"Just get moving, Tiny," Ironhide said, motioning for her to jump. "We've got things over here."

She noticed the nonchalant way they were all acting, despite the fact that, from the way everything was going, it looked like the plan was falling from the sky. How were they acting so calm when –

She narrowed her eyes. "What did you lot do?" she asked, smirking.

Lennox smirked at her, "I've got no idea what you're talking about," he said before pushing her out the plane with a smile on her face.

SS

"They might be able to bring him back!"

Serena and Selena weren't surprised they'd managed to scream those words in unison.

"Lennox said it might work. If it does, Optimus will be coming back with them. If not . . ."

Selena hugged her friend. "Let's not think like that. I'm sure he'll be back before you'll know it and you two can have that talk."

Tessa smirked as Selena let him go. "Right, because _I'm _the only one who needs to talk to a large Mech." Her smirk had to grow as both sisters looked away from her. "I knew it!"

"You know nothing," Serena argued. "You suspect!"

"Nope," she said, smiling widely. "You and Sideswipe are attached to the hip." She turned her gaze to Selena. "Whereas you and Ironhide haven't made an honest attempt on each others' lives since a certain trip into the desert." She raised her eyebrow as Selena looked away from the two. "I won't pry, as it's not my place, but, take it from me, it does neither of you any good to wait."

"Thanks, I guess."

Selena watched as the other two women went on about things she wasn't paying attention to at all. She thought of what Tessa had said. If Ironhide died, what would she do? If Ironhide had, truly, died, could she handle it the same way she had handled Prime's death?

_No,_ a traitorous voice whispered. _You couldn't._

Then they'd heard it: the sound of a plan landing.

**I should leave it here, but I promised myself I would end this whole arc here so that I could get something done that I REALLY want you to see, so let's get this done!**

"Tessa, look," before Selena could finish, Tessa had run away, probably not even sure that Optimus was actually there. She couldn't blame her, but she was happy. Gloriously happy. She had missed the large Prime and was certainly happy that he was home. "Go get her, Chief," she said, making sure to use Tessa's nickname for him.

"Thank you for watching over her, Selena," he said, moving towards where Tessa had run off to. "I will have to find some way to thank you later."

"We're just happy you came home," Serena said, hugging him with tears in her eyes. "We'll take that."


	14. Chapter 14

**AN:/ Not a very long chapter, but a lot of things happen, and it sets up for my first original arc in this series! WHOOO! This is happening while Tessa is off the base for her own good.**

**I really love this arc because I was thinking of all the different ways that I could do it, and I decided on the one that was most likely to make Selena want to rip her heart out of her chest and stomp on it herself to avoid any further issues.**

**Also, I'm so very sorry about the thirteenth chapter. Apparently, Fanfiction didn't feel like posting it when I told it to, and then my mom had to work on her grant, so I couldn't fix it until just now. Now, If I work hard enough, I should be able to get you a third chapter by the end of the day!**

It had been two days since Optimus had returned, and it had only taken one of those for him to see the change between the eldest sister and his weapon specialist. He didn't know what exactly had happened, but he was able to guess. His best was that one of them had finally admitted to themselves that they had feelings for the other and said other was still deep in denial. Somehow, this very messed up (as Tessa would have called it) situation seemed so like the two. He shuddered at the thought of the fights the two would have should they ever get together. They fought with each other enough now – he had once heard Lennox describe them as "an old, married couple" though he had no idea why – and the large Mech was almost afraid of what would be said when they learned exactly what buttons to push on one another, not just random smashing.

Still, he would be as happy for them as he was for Serena and Sideswipe.

It wasn't until he had thought that, on the second day, that he realized just how badly Selena and Ironhide needed each other. While Serena had made her own face on the base well known, along with her name, Selena had been quiet, never leaving her sisters side. She had, literally, become nothing more than Serena's older sister, and, sadly, she seemed a bit too happy to take up the mantle and leave her own name behind. It wasn't until that moment that he realized both he and the others had begun to think of her as nothing more than 'the older sister'. Something about that saddened the Mech a bit inside.

Before he had more time to dwell on things, the alarm for an intruder went off. "Lennox, where is he?" Optimus called out transforming.

"We got a human intruder headed straight for . . ." Lennox stopped making sure he was right. "He's headed straight for the girls' cabin!"

Without another word, every living creature ran straight towards the small cabin in the far corner of the base, closest only to the garage, but still far enough away for an assassin to kill them before the bots and soldiers could get there in time.

Optimus had never seen Ironhide _or _Sideswipe move so quickly. In all the centuries he had known the two, neither of them had ever seemed so afraid, even when starring death down with nothing but their bare hands. Perhaps these girls would be as good for them as Tessa had been for him.

When they finally reached the small circle of plane land with nothing but a small cabin they had finished for the two sisters only a day before, they head a high pitched shriek and a call of, "Put me down you oaf!"

They were so bust breaking down the door to the cabin they hadn't heard the laughter in Selena's voice, or the pure laughter of Serena.

What they saw when they opened the door was a far cry from what they had been expecting when they had rushed all the way over there in their panic.

The strange man was holding Selena upside down, her hair wet from her shower earlier, pressed tightly against him so she didn't actually fall. He had his arms securely around her waist and held tightly, despite her wriggling, squirming, and the random shoves of her feet into his face. Selena, for her part, looked annoyed, but, strangely, happy to see the mystery man. While trying to pull her green tank top (the others didn't even know if she owned anything else) she screamed at his to watch where his hands were, and Ironhide narrowed his eyes as he notice this stranger had had the _nerve _to put his hands on _his _Selena's jean covered aft. Just who did this glitch think he was?

Selena, on the other hand, was quite happy with the new development, though a little irritated at her old friend's perverted ways. It wasn't until he had begun twirling her around that she realized the Bots and soldiers were in the cabin and about ready to shoot him. "Michael," she cried, still laughing and trying to keep the blood from rushing to her head. "Dang it, Michael, they're goanna shoot you, and I won't stop them."

It was then that Michael noticed the on lookers, one in particular who seemed quite irate with him. More so than the others. He couldn't help but smirk at him over Selena's shoulder, making sure she couldn't see. Every male spine in the room straightened. Good, let them hate him, let them try and kick him out. It would make his job far easier.

"Vraiment, Michael. Vous allez trop loin parfois! Etiez-vous essayer de me tuer! Ne pas effrayer tout le monde comme ca!" _Really, Michael. You go too far sometimes! Were you trying to kill me? Don't scare everyone like that!_

Michael smiled at her. All those years and the little pup had still remembered how to speak French, just for him. Perhaps things would be simpler than he thought. "Bein, bein. Tu savez, Selena, vous vraiment avoir du plaisir a chaque fois un certain temps!" _Fine, fine. You know, Selena, you should have some fun once and a while. _He reached out and pinched her cheek smiling innocently. "Tout cela inquietant peut pas etre bon pour peau." _All this worrying can't be good for your skin._

Selena fought the urge to slap her old friend. Sure, she'd missed him (almost as much as she'd missed someone to speak French to) but, sometimes, he could really push her to her limit, even if he meant well. Still, she trusted him more than anyone else on the planet. When they'd been stuck in that place, it was Michael who had gotten them out. When they'd needed work, it was Michael who had taught her his newest trade, giving her a way to put food in her sister's mouth. She would have done anything for him. All he had to do was ask.

Serena, however, didn't share her sister's view of the man, choosing, instead, to take a few steps closer to Sideswipe, and even hiding behind him when Michael had smirked at them, though it seemed the evil smile was meant more for Ironhide than anyone else. Michael did that a lot. He would just do these little movements that let everyone but Selena know that he had ulterior motives for whatever he was doing.

When she was little, her dislike of the man came from, she would admit, a bit of jealousy on her part. Back then, all she had was Selena, and, whenever he would come, the two would just go off into their own little world, speaking their fluent French, which she had never learned, and completely ignoring everyone else around them. Earlier, she had hated him for the fact that he distracted Selena from herself, something she wasn't used to at all. As time went on, though, she learned that she hated him for many more reasons than just pulling Selena alongside him like some sort of dog.

"If you two would be kind enough to speak English before the rest of us have to download another fragging translator," Ironhide started. "I'm sure it would be appreciated."

He was not happy with how his day had gone. First he'd been thrown into a panic by some strange intruder, now he found that the little Femme in front of him was _friends _with the intruder. More than friends if their comfort in speaking to each other was any indication.

Why couldn't she speak with _him _like that? What was so special about this one glitch?


	15. Chapter 15

**AN:/ I don't even know why I'm stopping it where I am. I'm going to be working on the next chapter as soon as I post this, and I'll probably finish it before I gleefully pass out on my couch again for another five and a half hours.**

**And the true intentions of Michael are revealed. To an extent. I really hate this guy, almost as much as I hate Tyson, but I can kill Tyson. Sadly, I'm not sure if I can afford to kill Michael. Still, he's a useful tool, and I intend to use him as such.**

**I own nothing. Everything goes to UlurNaga. Lawyer Dave says to tell you it actually all goes to Bay since Tessa doesn't even show up, but I punched him and now he's crying.**

**UlurNaga is the Fanfiction god. Any who wish to argue this fact may come forward. I suggest you bring flame-retardant clothing with you for your own good.**

It wasn't even a day later when every human and Autobot on base decided that they hated Michael to the core and wished they could kick him off the base, literally. Ironhide had been imagining drop kicking the little glitch back to wherever he had come from and listening for the satisfying THUD he would make upon landing. Everyone, even Serena, had voiced their hatred of the smug man who would wait until the opportune moment to act like a complete git.

Still, none of them could stand a chance against his human shield: Selena. No matter what they would say, she would always stand beside the man, declaring him to be an honest and good person, even brushing off Serena's claims otherwise, though not without looking decisively hurt and betrayed first. The man would stand behind her, smirking like a damned cat, and convince her that it was all a misunderstanding (on their part) and would placate her with promises that they were just getting used to him.

"He's always been like this," Serena told them, sitting comfortably on Sideswipe's shoulder as she explained who he was. "Selena said he saved us before I can remember, so I have to be nice to him. When I was little, he liked to pick on me whenever she wasn't looking and try to get her to go on jobs and leave me behind. Whenever I would tell her about it, she would do exactly like she's doing now, then he would swoop in and pretend to be the peacemaker." She frowned and curled up next to Sideswipe's face. "He's got her wrapped around his finger. He's the only one who could get her to jump off a cliff if he wanted her to, and I don't know how to stop it."

Sideswipe suddenly had a deep hatred for Selena. She had hurt her sister this way, something he couldn't stand. Siblings should always look after one another, just like how Sunstreaker had looked after him before they were separated. Here Serena was, though, hurting because of her sister's ignorance.

"He once asked her to leave with him and drop me off with any relative we could find," she said, whipping the tears from her eyes. "That was the only time that she had kicked him out and been actually mad at him. Didn't last long, though. He came back the next day and apologized, said something about having been really drunk and not thinking before he spoke. He had meant it, though. I could see it in his eyes."

"Then why in the name of Primus does she insist on staying near him at all times?" Ironhide bellowed, reminding everyone who was actually suffering most from this development.

Ironhide had just admitted to himself that he might have feelings for the little femme, and she went off and practically welded herself to some random idiot he had never even heard of. Now he was finding out that, because of this idiot, he had, apparently, never even had a chance. How was he, an alien from a dead planet in the middle of a war, supposed to go against a normal mech from her own species who had already provided for her, protected her, and shown that he could be exactly what she wanted him to be. When she was around.

There was still the issue of how he would treat Serena. Had Selena known about hoe Serena actually felt around him, she would have kicked him out promptly, he was sure. Sure, this man had her wrapped around his finders, but Selena was willing to die for her sister, not him. He would never have treated Serena so terribly. It was almost criminal to do so.

"Someone's coming," Optimus warned. Quickly, but careful not to hurt Serena, who was now standing nearby in an attempt to give Sideswipe the time to transform, the Autobots transformed, not sure if it was their guest or another soldier.

"I always knew you didn't like me," Michael said, moving into the light. Ironhide had to admit, he was well suited for the place of . . . who was that traitor everyone referenced all the time Jesus? No, Judas! That was who he was thinking of.

Michael was handsome. He had sandy blond hair that was cut short, but was still a bit longer than his holoform's. He was in shape, but not nearly as . . . buff, he'd head the femme soldiers call him. He had striking green eyes that were filled with mischief and . . . was it too cliché to call it evil?

"What do you want this time Michael?" She asked angrily, placing a hand on Sideswipe's hood in an attempt to keep calm. Something she hadn't had time to tell the Autobots before they were interrupted: Michael frightened her. He didn't scare her. Movies scare people. Scary stories scare people, but Michael? Michael dug deep into your soul and made sure that you were terrified of him. She had always been too afraid of Selena's reaction to tell her.

"I want to get your sister back where she belongs," he said, dropping some sort of strange disc onto the floor only for it to beep before becoming silent. "In that damned Tank."

"Tank?" Serena asked, not understanding. "What tank?"

Michael looked at her incredulously. His stare grew cold before he began to laugh violently. "Hahahaha. Oh, hahahaha! You're serious?" he looked at the teenager in front of him, arms around his stomach. "You, honestly, don't remember?" Serena didn't even have the chance to answer that she didn't before he flew into a fit of laughter again. "Oh, that is _rich! _That bitch sister of yours really _did _put you in a damn bubble, didn't she? You don't even remember good old Scalpel. Not that it should matter much, now that he's dead."At the recognition of the name, every Autobot in the garage tried to move to shield the girl from this unknown threat.

They couldn't.

'That fragging glitch must've brought Decepticon technology with him!'

'How did we not notice?' Sideswipe demanded, panicking as Michael grew closer and closer to Serena.

'It hadn't been activated,' Ratchet decided. 'Since it wasn't on, it wasn't letting out a signature!'

"Do you know why you were always moving in the Middle East?" Michael asked. "Do you know why, whenever you got any new friends in whatever village you were in, Selena would tell you to stay away from them before they would suddenly disappear?" He pulled out a gun and Serena realized that, since he had dropped the disc, she had become paralyzed. "Do you know why you would suddenly get guests around your age who would work with her before just leaving?" He walked around her in a circle. "I wouldn't bother trying to move," he advised, seeing her strain. "That disc I dropped let out a gas to keep you paralyzed and some sort of magnetic waves to keep your little friends over there from stomping on me."

Serena was at a loss. She was in the position she had always feared she would be in: at Michael's mercy.

"Do you even know what happened to you? Why Selena's so afraid of you going anywhere near Asia?" He waited, as if expecting her to answer. "Well, this gas lasts for hours, so I'm sure we have plenty of time."


	16. Chapter 16

**This is, probably, the shortest chapter I've ever written, but it wasn't really meant to be long. It was meant to be a look into the actual background of the sisters and what was happened to them to a degree.**

**You know what, I don't wanna do a disclaimer. I've sucked out all imagination for the day giving you guys five chapters in one day, NO MORE! UluNaga owns everything, and if Lawyer Dave has the balls to fight me on this, he better be ready to deal with my large flame throwers.**

"Your dad owed a lot to some very scary . . . well, I don't think they count as "people" since they're not actually human. They're actually a lot like your friends here. After you killed your mother in childbirth, he had a bit less love for you and even less for your sister for wasting money to take care of you. I the end, he couldn't take it and handed you over for 'research'.

"The rest of us had similar stories, families who turned us over for cash, but only two sets of siblings came to the Cages: you and your sister, and me and my older sister.

"Selena was just four when you two ended up there. We were all stuck in the same cage. When my sister, Jessabell, would sleep, she did the same thing your sister does now. She would sleep with the three of us pushed against the wall. Backfired when they came for the first subject and, while trying to grab _your sister, _they grabbed her instead."

With that, he brought his gun across her face.

"I never understood what was so great about her. She was nothing compared to Jessabell! Nothing! She was always such a little brat, biting the Hands when they would come to get us out, stealing all the food and water for you! She was useless and clingy.

"I always wondered what made her special, then they took her into the Tank. Everyone else who had gone in had never come out. It brought me some comfort knowing she was going to die in that damned Tank just like Jessabell and _you _were going to die because no one was going to be willing to give you any food or water now that she was gone.

"I hadn't expected for her to come back. None of the others ever had. Again, she managed to survive when everyone else had died. What made her special! What made her better than my Jessabell! What gave her the right to live when everyone else had died!"

By this point, everyone had managed to figure out two things: 1. Michael was dangerously unbalanced and 2. He had a disturbing sister complex.

"When you were four, they took you to the Tank too, but Selena put something in your stupid clothes before you left! When you came back, you were sleeping like a damn baby! You weren't even hurt! At least Selena had come back traumatized! You! You didn't even have a scratch!

"Whatever she gave you kept you safe, and the bitch kept it to herself! She let my sister die! She let all those others die and just wasted it all on you! A year later, there was an explosion. Everyone was freed and made a break for it. Still, I wanted revenge. My sister was dead, and I wanted to get back and the bitch who let her die, so I played it up. I said it was my doing a lead you and your sister out of there.

"Ever since then, I kept trying to get her alone, to turn her over to them. They can do more damage to her than I ever could, but you kept getting in the way. She was their first success, the first one to come out of the Tan k alive. They wanted only her.

"Now, I've got the chance. She doesn't trust any of you anymore, and now she thinks I'm practically a god. I thought I'd have a hard time with . . . what was his name? Ironhide? He might have been an issue had he gotten off his ass. My god, she never shuts up about him. Over and over, Christ, she's got a fucking boner for you, whichever one you are."

"Glad you enjoyed my stories," Selena said from behind him, taking the gun from his hand and struggling to get it pointed away from her sister. "Serena, close your eyes," she ordered softly. She obeyed carefully, afraid of what exactly was going to happen when she did.

"Why, Michael?" She asked, still wrestling with him for the gun. "Why didn't you just _say _something! I would have help. I would have done _anything _you asked!" She had the gun pointed at his head for a second before he had it moved again.

"It was too late! Jessabell was already dead, and you had to pay!" The gun was pointed at her before it, once again, moved.

As the two fought, Selena fought the internal need to sob uncontrollably. She had trusted Michael more than any creature on this earth, she had even trusted him with an admission she hadn't even admitted to herself, and he decided to do this to her.

Flashback

"_What was with the walking brick wall back there?" Michael asked innocently. Selena had to smile. Not at Michael, for once, but at the thought of Ironhide. "He seemed a little . . . jealous."_

"_Ironhide? Jealous? No way. He hardly – That is – He's never –"_

"_You like him," he pointed out, smiling._

"_What, no! No. No way! Nat at all! Hardly! I mean . . ." Selena sighed, seeing the knowing look that he was giving her. "He doesn't like me at all. We always argue. He would never –"_

"_You never know."_

End of Flashback

"You're such an idiot! You think I care about you? About your sister? You're nothing! Nothing!" With that, a single shot rang out, and both parties fell to the floor.


	17. Chapter 17

**AN:/ Again, not a long chapter, but very revealing about a lot, like - whoops, for once, I intend not to let things slip out before the chappie. I can tell you that I'm surprised no one freaked out about the ending more. I mentioned that I didn't want to kill Michael, as, despite my hatred for him, I still like using him as a tool, and I never said I wasn't willing to make this into a bit of a tragedy.**

You all want to kill me now, don't you?

Also, I want to see how much you lot have been paying attention. Three guesses as to what the actual purpose behind those pieces of metal I mentioned earlier were. See if you can figure it out.

Normally, this would be the part where Lawyer Dave would tell me the UlurNaga doesn't own everything other than Serena, Selena, and Michael, but he . . . fell, somewhere near my Italian uncle's neighbourhood. They're doing construction down there, by the way. It'll be really pretty.  


The two figures had been on the ground for an hour now, and the small disc's power over the Autobots was only just fading. The magnetic waves had made all of their scans if the two useless, as everyone kept getting different signals. Serena had long since begun to cry, a small voice in the back of her head telling her that he sister was dead.

Neither seemed alive, both drenched in the liquid life of the one who must have been laying, dying, in a pool of their own blood. Whenever one seemed more likely to be breathing, the other would seemingly take a breath, making the onlookers wonder furiously which of them had managed to shoot the other, the fighting having been so close between the two of them that, even after playing it back over and over again, none of the Autobots could tell who had pulled the trigger or who had been hit.

The only one panicking more than Serena had to be Ironhide. The second the effect of the disc wire off, he was the first one with a holoform, picking her up in his arms and cradling her carefully. "Selena, come on, Tiny! Wake up!" He gently shook her trying desperately to find some sign of life in her, completely forgetting all the faster ways he could find out, his mind completely gone at the sight of the blood on her. "Slagit Selena! Get up!" Again, she laid, silent, as if she refused to move merely because they were having another fight between themselves, but is was no fight. Not anymore.

Finally, she drew in a breath, a single breath, but it was enough that the holoform sagged from the sheer relief that Ironhide felt at the girl's resurrection. In his arms, Selena groaned angrily, the pain in her head from her fall almost unbearable coupled with the force Michael's shove. Reminded of her old friend, she looked to see that he, too, was recovering, the shot having only grazed his groin, but hitting enough to drench them both in his blood.

She sighed in relief that she had not killed him.

"Primus take you, girl," Ironhide growled at her, pulling her closer to him. Selena was mildly surprised at his actions, not truly sure what to think of the mech that now held her very frail body in his very strong arms. A part of her wanted to merely lay in his arms and forget what was happening, what she would have to face when everything calmed down, but she knew she could not. No matter what she wanted, she would have to face the reality of what she had done and been through eventually. Until then, though, she could enjoy his hold and pretend that Michael had been right in assuming that he had been jealous when he first came, that she was not alone while feeling what she felt.

For now, she would sleep.

SS

"Why didn't you kill him?" Serena asked when everything had calmed down. "You kill everyone who double-crosses us, so why let HIM of all people live?" Serena was not, usually, one to complain about her sister sparring a life, but she didn't think that Michael, after all he had done, was exactly deserving of her sister's mercy.

"Not that I'm adverse to your chivalry,"Optimus added, "But I happen to remember you threatening me several times to the safety of your sister. What changed?"

Serena shrugged from her place on Ironhide's shoulder. "Ask yourself this: what would have happened had his sister not died?"

"He wouldn't be such a sociopath?" Serena supplied from her own, more permanent perch on Sideswipe's shoulder.

"He would have been me. Ergo, he would still be a slight sociopath. Not one word, Ironhide!" She glared playfully at the mech next to her. Now that she had admitted her feelings about the large mech to herself, she was able to freely enjoy how handsome he was: in both forms.

"You are nothing like him." Ironhide growled angrily. She could not possibly be serious! She was thousands of times better than the fool man who was now resting in the infirmary, next to the other one -Tyson - as he nursed his wounded . . . pride.

"Aren't I? What defines me? What has defined me for years now?"

"Your love for your sister," Prime answered truthfully, remembering his thoughts just before the entire arc of anger and hate had begun. "That is what drives you to live."

"Exactly," she said, pointing to the mech. "Had it been Serena and not Jessabell, I would have done the same thing. I'd have hunted and killed them like some sort of animal. Killing Michael may have been some form of suicide as far as I'm concerned, and I have no wish to kill myself just yet."

"The one time I actually think someone deserves a slow and painful death, and you won't dish it out." Serena growled. "Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture here?"

Selena laughed and smiled at her sister. "I think there's a bit wrong with the fact that my NOT killing someone is seen as strange to you."

SS

"You'll forgive me for not standing," Michael snarled, glaring at Selena as she entered the room. "It seems the more important parts of my legs have been destroyed utterly by you and that damnable gun."

"You brought the gun," she replied. "Therefore, it's all your fault."

Michael said nothing, but nodded to the unconscious figure of Tyson next to him. "Your work, I presume." he shook his head. "You never did like the macho men." At that, he smirked. "Unless they weren't human. Explains why I was never able to get you where I wanted you. You're just not one for us little fleshier anymore, are you, bitch?"

Instead of getting angry, she attested the comments to his now missing family jewels and sat down. "I'm going to explain something to you, then I'm going to leave and never look at your sad, pitiful face again." He opened his mouth to speak, but she ignored it. She had been listening to him for long enough. "I've told the others my reason for sparring you was that I pitied you, that I saw some of what I could become in you."

"Bullshit," he said.

"Yes, it is, but they don't know me well enough to call me on it just yet. The actual reason I'm not sending you to hell is for my own benefit, for two reasons. The first being our punishment. You're going to lie in this cell, forever remembering that you were oh, so very close to killing me and getting the revenge you wanted so badly only to have it taken away just like that." She snapped her fingers and delighted in the way his face contorted in anger at her words. "The second being a reminder for me. Those of you from that time cannot be trusted. You are proof of that."

"What will you say when they begin to realise the true reason for your . . . generosity?" he asked, genuinely curious as to he answer.

"The truth," she said, standing to walk away, "That the second someone threatens my sister, I become both a sadist and a psychopath, completely incapable of feeling any remorse for anything I do to the ones responsible. You knew that when you start this idiotic quest for my blood."

"That I did," he whispered as she closed the door, leaving him behind. "That I did."

SS

"You'll have to explain everything to the others eventually," Ironhide said, finding his femme on the outskirts of the base, far from any buildings or life, even her sister's. "They found Scalple's research, his notes, his tapes. Don't you think it would be better to warn them of what they'll see than let them guess and find out?"

"I probably would be," she agreed, looking at him. "There are a lot of things I should do, a lot of things I should say, but I don't want to say them. I rarely do something I don't want to."

"Sometimes you have to do what you don't want to. We are not always given the choice to turn away."

"I know," she whispered before quickly climbing up to his face to kiss him gently on his cheek barely away from his large, metal lips. "But I think I'll just do what I want this time."

With that, she leapt down from the mech's shoulder and walked off to find her new bed and sleep until there was no time left to sleep.

**It's okay if you still want to kill me. I think I might deserve it a bit, especially for that beginning. I'm sure Ironhide is standing outside my house, ready to blast me several feet into nothing.**

I had originally planned on having Selena kill him then cry over his corpse that he should have trusted her, should have told her, and then have Ironhide gently pull her away, but I decided against it for one primary reason: Selena loves her sister to death. If someone threatens Serena, they are dead, end of discussion, end of argument, she's going to kill them, but this man had the balls to go as far as he did, so she's not going to just kill him - oh, no - she's going to permanently fuck him up both mentally and physically. She is going to end him and make sure he tears himself apart with out her having to lift a finger.

Also, I don't think Selena and Ironhide are quite so far yet that she'll show so much vulnerability in front of him and the rest of the bots. Just a bit further, you guys. They'll get there. Maybe.

Also, I did this a bit because MissShelz asked "I wonder if he still would have been such a sociopath had his sister lived." Now you have your answer. No, he would have only been what Selena has become : defined by his love for his sister, only, I think, the time without her has made him a little more desperate than Selena. Also, Selena now has Sideswipe to help take care of Serena, whether or not that's going to cause problems, I don't know, and she now has more influences in her life and more people she can let in a bit, so she has slowly become less and less dependent on her sister's existence.

Another reason I didn't want her to kill him: I may have use for him later. You forget who his roommate is, and it would be so much easier to make sure he is merely crippled than killed if I need to bring him back. Now remember, I said I MAY have use for him later, or I may not. If I do bring him back, it might be to continue his vendetta, or he may return as a good guy, or he may come back only throw himself in the way of a bullet and die as cannon fodder. I don't know. Again, I like using him as a tool, but I don't like him as a character. I really wish Ironhide might just step on him, but I need my tools. No sense in throwing them away too quickly.

I'm sad to say that this is going to be my last update for a bit. I'm going to a camp for two weeks that will take up most of my free time and take me away from any computers I can update from, but, when I come back in two weeks, I'll have a lot done and you'll get another barrage of chappies from me. Until then, remember that UlurNaga has lots of chapters up, and there's nothing wrong with going through the entire story again because, let's face it, we all love her story, writing, and I haven't had the chance to put any TessaXOptimus fluff in here yet.


	18. Chapter 18

**AN: / I was, previously, going to leave you with just the one other chapter I posted today, but I couldn't do it. I had to write out the more specific parts of the sisters' past. I just had to.**

**There isn't a lot of fluff in this, and most of it comes from Optimus in regard to Tessa, and even that, you kind of have to squint to see. Just a question, does anybody else want to see Selena and Serena go visit Tessa's house and have a severely long Girl-Talk about their respective bots? Maybe have the bots, somehow, listen in? Anybody but me? If so, give me a heads up and I'll see if I can get it in there sometime soon!**

**Once again, I have to give a million thanks to UlurNaga for letting me use the basis of her story PrimMech – Is it just me, or is there a noise coming from the wall. Is that – Mary, Mother of God, what are you – No, Lawyer Dave, I did not push you into a pound of cement and the use that cement as a bench in my garden so – Yes, I know that this is, officially, a Transformers fanfic, but – Yes, I know that Michael Bay has the rights to the story, but, in case you haven't noticed, he's had his groin blown off and can no longer stand properly, plus, my readers have requested his death and I am now inclined to – Just read the damn fic and review!**

"You know you have to explain this to us eventually, do you not?" Optimus asked Selena as Serena walked out to talk to Lennox about letting them go to the mall with Tessa, which would, inevitability, end in a no.

It wasn't that Lennox didn't trust him, but more of a punishment the higher ups impressed onto the girls for letting a traitor into their mist. They weren't going to let them go out into the real world for another week, which was also a terrible punishment to Tessa, who also wasn't allowed onto base until said week was over, as she was missing the two sisters as well. This dire predicament had lead to hour-long arguments between Serena, who was dealing with the cabin fever far worse than her sister, and Lennox, who just wanted to get home to his wife, dang it.

"I know," she answered. "That's why I'm going to explain it to you while everyone's off doing something else. You can tell the others what you think they need to know." She looked down at her shoes. "I know I wasn't exactly the nicest girl when we first came over here, but Tessa trusted you, so I'm hoping I can to."

The ancient mech nodded at her in respect. "I will only share what I must."

Gulping down her fear, Selena nodded. "What you shouldn't tell everyone . . . those parts are pretty obvious. You really shouldn't tell Tessa about _any _of this."

The mech paused. "I-I also wish to keep her away from any harm,' he confided. "She has stayed so far away from violence for so long; I do not relish the thought of that innocence being corrupted. Not for any cause."

"Mmhmm," Selena agreed, looking at the direction Serena had left mere minutes before. "I know what you mean."

SS

"Michael was telling the truth about Mami. When Serena was born, they couldn't get to the hospital fast enough because Dad was too drunk to get us there in time. The doctors were able to save Serena, but not Mami. Dad wasn't really that broken up over it, but being responsible for someone's death takes a toll on your soul, so he decided to blame it all on Serena and not take care of her as punishment.

"What he wasn't counting on was Mami knowing that something like that might happen and teaching me how to get our neighbor to take the money I could steal from Dad's beer money to get the things we needed from the store.

"She also left each of us one of these." Selena held up the piece of metal from her locket. "When I first saw an AllSpark Shard, I thought she might have gotten one, but it's not. They're shavings from the engine of a decepticon's engine. She was a mechanic and offered to check up on Dad's 'friend's' cars when they were there in case he did exactly what he did and gave us over to them to pay off his debt. She thought they'd help us, and I guess they did. I was the first one to survive my time in the . . . Tank, and, when I put mine with Serena's for a few days, she came back better than I did."

Optimus scanned the object. "That would be due to the radiation it's been emitting," he explained. "It's giving off enough to infuse with the natural radiation your body already gives off but not enough to be noticed if you are scanned. It has to be scanned separately."

"That must have helped," Selena agreed. "The Decepticons were trying to create human/cybertronian creatures to act as foot soldiers and cannon fodder. It would have kept their numbers the same while giving them plenty of people to go against you and the others in suicide missions.

"Scalpel, the one in charge, made it very clear that, if we wound up as successes, we weren't going to be in the same league as the other decepticons. We were going to be slaves and, once the war was over, they were planning on killing us to avoid an uprising. Honestly, it wasn't even on my mind. I don't think anyone was really thinking of anything but themselves when we were in there. It was every man for themselves and no honor among the hungry.

"I don't really remember Jessabell that much. I know I should, considering she died for me, but I just don't.

"I remember the Tank, though, something like that, you just don't forget. Ever. It wasn't that big, I don't think I would even fit in it now, but . . .it looked so large when I was growing up. There were . . . needles and, sometimes, knives. I think all the energon they pumped into me, along with that other stuff I never found, is the only reason I'm not covered in scars right now."

"Energon could kill humans?" Optimus asked, unnerved. This new news made the relationship he had only just began with Tessa seem only THAT much more daunting.

"It wasn't the energon. It was the other stuff they added to it that killed the others. Every time, the mixture of the two killed them. I think the radiation in our bodies helped us survive.

"Then there was this big explosion. Everyone was able to get out, but the door to our cage was jammed. Michael . . . Michael got us out of there. Serena was only about five at the time. Everyone moved around the States for another year before we snuck onto this plane that was just for students. We knocked out the flight attendant and told the pilot that we were good to go.

"We wound up in the Middle East and all went our spate ways. It's pretty ironic that most of us ended up in the exact same profession. Sometimes, the others will come and visit if they need another hand for a job, and I'll go work with them. After we're done, they'll take what they need and move on. With Michael, now proving himself not to be the exception, we don't really get together and talk because we actually like each other. I guess we still have this mentality that we still have to fight one another just to survive.

"It was a game to the decipticons. They would only give us barely enough food, most of the time it wouldn't even be enough, and make bets on which of us would end up with the least and the most amount of food. We would wind up fighting like a bunch of animals." She shrugged. "I guess being around one another brings that side of us out a bit more when we hang around one another for too long, so we usually just meet up for business and then head on our merry way."

Optimus should have let the story end there, but there was one part of Michael's monologue that he had to understand. "Michael mentioned how Selena would become friends with people just before they would disappear . . ."

Selena cursed. "That bastard would too." She sighed, running her fingers through her hair. "There are a lot of rules when it comes to women in the Middle East. We don't always listen to them. When people talk to us anyway, it gets them in a lot of trouble. I usually try and get them to a safer place as fast as I can, but, sometimes, I just can't get to them faster than the radicals can.

"There are some . . . unique circumstances. Those Cons weren't about to let us go that easily, and, when I heard that they were in Asia, I moved us as far west as I could without arousing some kind of suspicion, but we'd already been spotted before I could get us caught in the wind. Some random foot soldier used his holoform to pretend to be a kind butcher and almost got his claws into Serena. He disagreed with us staying out of desepticon clutches, so I disagreed with the cables in his neck functioning properly.

"That's everything really. My whole life explained in," she looked at her watch. "Ten minutes, dang."

Optimus shook his head. "I believe you forgot one of the more important parts."

"Which would be . . ."

He smiled at her, looking more like a father cheering up his daughter than a giant alien robot talking to a soldier. "Falling through the hatch in my roof and falling onto Ironhide."

Selena gasped, her face now bright, flaming red. "That was _Ironhide _I fell on?" She thought on the entire fight. "I crawled all over the poor man."

"Yes," Optimus chuckled, remembering his weapon specialist's, for lack of a better word, fit when they got home from that particular mission.

He had not been a particularly happy Bot.

"Optimus," She said, looking decisively embarrassed, "I know I just told you a lot, but . . . if you could just tone down a lot of the info I gave you when you show it to 'Hide—"

"I cannot do that," Optimus warned her. "Ironhide has grown attached to you in your time here. Even if I didn't show it to him, you yourself will have to tell him everything you have told me eventually. When you do, what you do and do not tell him will be your choice. Until then, I'm afraid I must let him hear everything the others hear. I cannot leave him at a disadvantage."

"I know," she whispered. "That doesn't mean I have to like it, does it?"

"No," he said, transforming into his alt mode so they could go and find her sister. "It does not mean that at all."


	19. Chapter 19

**AN: / This is the longest chapter I've ever written, and with good reason. A lot doesn't happen, and yet it does. I'm not sure how to describe it. I wrote this over the corse of the first week at camp. I'm still there (I'm pretty sure I shouldn't even be posting this) but I'm getting this to you guys because I love you all. I have the best reviewers.**

There's going to be another author's note at the end because I don't want to give too much away now.

For now, though. UlurNaga owns everything except - dammit Lawyer Dave! I didn't even get to finish - No, you listen to - don't make me hurt you Lawyer Dave! My reviewers love me, they won't testify against - You dare threaten me with paperwork! That's right, run Lawyer Dave. Run from the power of the flamethrower!  


After a few days trapped in confinement on base, even Selena was beginning to become a bit stir crazy. The nightmares and flashbacks after she'd gone down memory lane were hardly helping. She woken several times, her breathing heavy, her clothes drenched in sweat, and feeling a deep need to be as far from any other life as possible. Before, she had just gone to the garage. Now that the Bots were back, though, she had to settle for the roof of her cabin. Serena, thinking they were just the monthly set of nightmares, just curled furthur into her ball of flesh and blankets and decided, as always, that it would be best for everyone if she just waited for the storm to blow over, as she always did.

The Autobots had no idea what to do with such a stoic Selena, especially when they knew what had truly caused her stoicism. Most of the team, "most" meaning the twins, asked Ironhide constantly to do whatever it was he had done the last time. Sure, Selena came back looking as if someone had tried to kill her, but she snapped out of it, and that was all they wanted. Even Optimus was worried. He'd been able to dodge the need to tell Tessa about the sisters' past for this long because she wasn't even there, but, if she came back while Selena was like this, Tessa would fly into a panic.

Optimus was still deciding what to and not to filter from the story when he told her.  
Obviously, he had to tell her something; she'd automatically know the minute he tried to keep something from her. He wasn't even sure if he was physically capable of lying to Tessa for any reason, but, on the other hand, she was still so innocent. Even after everything that had happened before and after his death, she was still so pure and clean from the stentch of death this war had covered so many, even the innocent children in those experiments, in. He would lay down his life to ensure that such innocence was preserved fully. He had spent so long around soldiers who seemed to have nothing but a darkened outlook on life and smiles that could not reach their eyes, but hers - hers were infectious.

While Optimus dealt with his own internal turmoil, Ironhide had his own to wade through. Several feet of it, in fact. There was his recent discovery that his Spark wanted Selena, there was his need to argue with her over every little thing, there was the fact that she might hate him, there was her current state, there was the fact that Michael - though he loathed the very idea of listening to anything the little glitch had ever said - had mentioned that Selena might have feelings for him, there was the war that was slowly eating away at both of their souls, and there was the information Prim had given him.

In the aftermath of Selena's words and memories - highly edited by Prime himself - the leader had pulled Ironhide aside. "What I just showed all of you was a very edited version, old friend," he said. "At Selena's request, I took much of it out and could barely show any of it to any of you." The ancient mech looked at his own friend. "I do not believe even I was told everything." The Prime gave Ironhide a look that had clear meaning.

Selena would need to talk to someone, and Ironhide was the best choice.  
Now, Ironhide was driving in circles in his mind. How could he get her to open up to him, especially after everything that had happened to her in a matter of days. At least Tessa and the Bots had had a day or two to sleep and recuperate from the battle Megatron had brought to their doorstep.

If the circles under her eyes were any indication, Selena wasn't even getting that.  
She had been betrayed by her most trusted friend in the worst possible way and had been forced to reopen such old wounds that, if he was right, had healed so that they hurt less when they were first inflicted than after. If anything, she was, probably, contemplating the idea of never trusting anyone short of her sister again. Look where it had gotten her.

He couldn't do what he did the last time. That had been a very special form of torturous hell, making him regret almost every word he'd said and every bit of pain he'd inflicted onto her. That was before he'd managed to admit his feelings. He could never cause her any pain now. He would have to do something soon, though. Seeing her so miserable - so broken - it just wasn't natural.

SS

Selena knew the others were worried about her. What had surprised her was that Ironhide was the one most worried of all. Could Michael have been telling the truth? Could Ironhide have really been jealous when he first came? Could she not be alone in this feeling? Could she talk to him? Tell him how she felt?

A mental hand went right across her face, trying to snap herself out of the fantasy.  
She was being foolish. Ironhide was a giant, walking cannon - literally. She'd spent years tearing cannons apart. Not that he would care, but the symbolism and irony weren't lost on her. All those years of hating macho men - only to fall for the biggest one she could find.

She was pathetic.

She sighed, staring at the bright - yet still so dark - night sky for the umpteenth time. Once again, her nightmares had kept her from sleeping. It was a miracle that she hadn't scared anyone off base yet.

She knew better than to try and sleep after a nightmare, but she was just so tired, and the others were beginning to look at the circles under her eyes with worry. They had just lost their leader to a giant monster, and they were going to waste time worrying about her. It was a sobering thought, and she had tried to get some sleep, which had only ended in fearful images of knives and lasers and Tanks.

That was a fail on her part.

That night, she had seen the same thing she had been having every night since Michael had shown his true colors. She had been talking with the other bots, when they all suddenly walked away, Serena sitting on Sideswipe's shoulder. She called and called to all of them, though – she'll admit – she may have called to Ironhide once or twice more than she called to the others.

She would run after them, desperate to catch up. Eventually, though, she would find herself staring at her sister's head as she walked away with the others, leaving her behind.

She would wander after that, not really sure where she was going. After a while, she'd run into Michael. That was the most painful part. He'd smile at her, and hold out his hand, just like he did that day in the cage. She'd smile at him, like the weak fool she was, take his hand, and lean on him to help her up. As soon as she would get onto her own feet, though, he would push her backwards and she'd land in The Tank.

She'd look to him for help, useless, and watch as the holoform of Scalpel would hand him . . . something. She couldn't see what. She'd look to her left and see what could only be described as a female version of Michael staring straight at her. The girl would look at her and hand her a knife. "Do it," she would say. "You've got Selena to take care of. I would think the person responsible for saving and protecting you is nothing compared to your precious little sister."

Before she could continue, Selena would dig the knife into her gut, having not even thought about it.

That was where she would wake up, either screaming or fighting a scream as it fought its way to the surface. Her sheets wouldn't even be on her bed at that point; it was like they had fled from her in fear of what she would do.

She wasn't feeling sorry for Michael. She couldn't. He'd put his hands on her sister and hadn't managed to kill her. He knew what she would do the minute he made that plan. He knew she wasn't going to just smile and say she forgave him. He knew that she was a vengeful person. He knew she would punish him in the cruelest way she knew how.

He knew that. She knew that. So why did she feel as if she had done the wrong thing?

Selena couldn't fly by the same moral compass as everyone else. She'd learned that the first day she'd killed someone to feed Serena. She just couldn't play by the same rules. She'd tried that for a year, and they'd almost died of starvation. Sometimes, things had to be done. Serena understood that. They weren't always easy, and they weren't always pretty, but they had to be done to survive. Survival was a messy thing. You made you med by stealing the foam from other people. That was just how the game was played. She understood that. She understood that you had to scare people into leaving you and others alone. She understood that you couldn't be friends with everyone. She understood that, to get by, you couldn't take those hands that offered their help.

So why did it hurt when she was reminded of the rules?

"Oi, Tiny," a familiar voice called. "Get your aft off of there before you fall and kill yourself!"

Selena looked to see Ironhide glaring at her, daring her to argue. For the second time since she met him, she didn't. She simply crawled onto the hand he had placed next to her and let him set her down. She wasn't surprised to see him transform into his alt mode (she'd never admit it, but she knew that he knew she loved that mode) once she was safely on the ground, but she was surprised when he opened up the door to the driver's seat.

"Get in," he ordered, watching her carefully. He'd been contemplating what to say to her when he saw her crawl up to the roof. He knew she would be fine, she'd gone higher on less stable footing, but with as little sleep as she'd been getting, she could have easily fallen!

The fact that she got in without defying him was worrisome. She was a fighter. She should have been arguing with him! "I'm fine," she said, curling up in his seat and noting that he had turned up the heat to (if you asked any normal person) an ungodly temperature. She thought it was perfect. "I just can't sleep."

"If I actually believed that, I would have let you ride this out, Selena," he said, closing the door. "I let it go this long. I'm not watching for another night." He watched her carefully. "Now close your eyes and get some rest." He could practically scan the adrenaline that shot through her system at the word 'rest'. To her credit, though, she kept her face as emotionless as Soundwave's voice.

"No," she said. "I'm fine. I told you."

"Selena," Ironhide said. "You're not fine. We both know how well you are at being stubborn and not doing what you're told, so will you stop glitching and just get some slagging sleep!"

Selena was losing her patience. She didn't want to fight with Ironhide. That was the last thing she had wanted, but he was being such an ass about the whole thing! "First off all, kettle and pot – have you heard the saying?"

"I'm not being hypocritical," Ironhide argued. "I'm, at least, willing to admit that I'm stubborn. You, however, take denial further than any human I've ever met."

"I am not in denial!"

"Is that a denial I hear?" he asked, goading her without realizing it. He noticed it once it was out of his mouth, though. He hadn't wanted to fight with her. He knew that it wouldn't go well. She'd been stripped down to her lowest form the last time, more vulnerable than a bot without his armor. That wasn't what he wanted for her. He hoped to never see her that broken and weak again. That wasn't who she was. "Just go to sleep." He urged, his voice less mocking or condescending and gentler. "I'll be right here."

Oh, she wanted to sleep. She wanted to trust that he would still be there when she woke up, that he would stay with her through the nightmares, but she couldn't. He was holding out his hand, but she knew not to take it.

Before she could tell him that, though, almost a week without sleep and the warmth of the seats and in the vents lulled her into a comfortable sleep.

SS

Ironhide wasn't proud of what he'd done.

She had needed to sleep, but, perhaps, slipping a small bit of sleeping gas into the warm air that he was giving her was taking things too far. She would be furious when she woke up, if she could even tell what had happened, but she looked so peaceful now, her body relaxed and her breathing even. She looked so small and fragile, while still looking every bit the warrior he knew she was.

The calm didn't last, though. Minutes into her sleep, she became fitful. Moans and groans had slipped from her lips as she flipped over and over in his seats. She couldn't stand still and, in the end, he had his holoform holding her in his arms, stroking her hair as he had seen other mechs do to crying femmes before.

"Selena," he called, shaking her. "Selena, wake up." He did this for what seemed like hours, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes. "Come on, Selena."

She wouldn't wake up. All he could do was hold her as she whimpered in his false arms, no longer holding that strength he had seen in her earlier. She was as vulnerable now as she had been that day in the desert, and he couldn't help but curse himself for having left her alone to deal with this for so long. She had needed him, and he'd left her alone because he was too afraid.

Finally, she gasped and stiffened in his arms. "It's fine," he whispered into her ears. "You're fine."

She curled into him, her face now buried into the place where his heart would be if he were human. She felt the pulse of the energon beneath her fingers as they clutched to the fabric of the tank top he was wearing. "I killed her," she whispered. "I just killed her to save myself."

"No," Ironhide said, thinking she was referring to the glitch's sister – he couldn't remember her name – who had died. "No, you didn't."

"I just put the knife in," she whimpered. "I didn't even think about it. I just stabbed her like it was nothing, like she meant nothing." She couldn't look at him. She'd done such a horrible thing, so many horrible things. She couldn't bear to look at him in the eye.

"No," he said gently, trying to get her back to who she was. "You didn't. It was just a dream. You didn't kill her, Scalpel did. You were a Sparkling, Selena. There was nothing you could have done. You had to take care of Serena."

"That's it, isn't it," she said. "I always have to take care of Serena. I always say that, every time I do something like that. 'I have to protect Serena.' That's not the reason, though. Is it?"

Ironhide had to cut her off. "Don't you dare," he warned her. "Don't you dare go down that road, Selena. We do what we have to."

Now he understood. Once again, she was showing symptoms he'd only seen in soldiers who had been fighting longer than she had been alive. He'd seen it in so many soldiers after they'd killed their friends. The guilt. She thought she did it because she was a monster, but she didn't. He knew why she did it, and she did too. He just had to remind her.

"Do you feel the warmth of this holoform?" he asked her suddenly.

"What?"

"Do you feel the warmth of this holoform?"

She paused, confused at his sudden question. "Yes, but what –"

"That's because you're alive. That's because, when that glitch came to kill you and Serena, you did what you needed to do and you shot him, because, when you and Serena were hungry, you did what you needed to, because, that human femme put herself between you and Scalpel. You are alive because you survived. I know that you think you shouldn't have done it, but you needed to. Had you not done all of that, you wouldn't be here, and I would be miserable. You're needed here, Selena, and not just by Serena."

Selena knew she should have thought on the speech as a whole, but she could only focus on the last bit. "Come on, Ironhide," she joked, thinking he was kidding. "You know you'd sleep a bit better if –"

He angrily cut her off. "I could never be better without you," he growled. "Do not ever think that. I need you here –" he squeezed her tighter in his grasp "—where I know you're safe. Don't you ever try to take that from me."

Selena couldn't speak. Once again, he was holding his hand out to her. Would he push her to the ground just like Michael? Would he hold her, just as he was doing now? Could she trust him to? There were so many ifs, so many emotions. She couldn't tell what to ignore and what to listen to. She liked Ironhide, possibly more than she had liked Michael, and she'd once thought she would love him one day. Now, only a few days later, could she just open her heart up when it wasn't even all there still.

As if knowing exactly what she was thinking, Ironhide added. "I'm not asking you to love me, I would never expect so much after everything that has happened to you, but you need to know: I do want you next to me, for as long as you'll allow it. I want to argue with you, to laugh with you, to hold you during moments like this, when you need me to. I want to do all of this with you, but you have to let me."

"I'm not normal," Selena said eventually. "By anyone's standards. What Scalpel did to me . . . I don't know e full extent. I may wind up dead somewhere along the way, just keeled over from whatever he up in me."

"Doesn't matter."

"I'm always going to stay near Serena. You'll have to deal with her for the rest of both our lives."

"Doesn't matter."

She paused. "I'm broken. You're getting damaged goods here."

He lifted her chin, forcing her to look into those deep, bright blue eyes. "Does. Not. Matter."

She laughed. "You have no idea what you're getting into."

"How many times do I have to say it before it goes through your by thick head? It doesn't matter. None of those things matter to me. If they did, I wouldn't be holding you here, now. I'm not letting you go until you tell me to, Selena." his gaze bore into her. "Even then, I'm not sure if I have the strength to let go."

"It'll take a lot more strength to hold onto me than to let go."

"I know," he whispered, kissing her on her forehead. "Now, go to sleep. I'll be right here the entire time."

For the first time in a week, Selena closed her eyes with no fear of what she would see and feel into a peaceful sleep, nestled into the holoform's arms.

**This isn't the end, I swear. I thought I would have to point that out because, let's face it, it kind of sounds like e end to a book, or, maybe, that's just the books I've been reading lately. I don't know. Either way, this is not the end, it's just the beginning of a LOT of IronhideXSelena fluff. Lots and lots of fluff! You're not getting any lemons for a long time, so get used to it.**

I really liked doing Selena's dream. I think I enjoy torturing her just a bit too much. Either way, she can handle it. I thought long and hard and decided that, while she understands why she's had to kill people, I don't think it wouldn't affect Selena as much as she likes to think it does. Up until now, she's been able to let it go because they were evil people in some way shape or form, but, with Michael, she still has this image of him as the hero in her mind, hence why she still takes his hand in the dream.

While I do hate him, I do have to admit: Selena, at some point in her life, loved him. She trusted him more than anyone else, and that kind of trust just doesn't disappear. It can be diminished and broken, but pieces of it will still remain behind, no matter how much we want them to. Once we make that strong a connection to someone, once we raise them that high in our minds, we cannot dispel that image we have of them as nothing less than perfect.

In essence, Selena feels like she's ruined her best friend, which would break any person, no matter how strong they are.

Also, I wanted Ironhide to admit he liked her, which, because I say so, would force her to admit that she liked him. It's not love (Selena won't be able to handle that for a while) but its very close to it. Ironhide is slowly becoming the forefront of Selena's world, but it can't just happen. I'll admit, things may go faster than Tessa and Optimus's relationship because, while Tessa and Optimus let their feelings flow together, Ironhide and Selena bottle them up until they explode. Also, Optimus is far more of a gentleman than Ironhide is. Ironhide's too impatient to be a gentleman, but don't you think it would be funny if her were to try?

Finally, I swear, this is the end of the note, I'm going to do the phone idea in a oneshot. What to you guys want to hear and what do you want the girls to do? Send your requests now, I can't hold this off for too long.


	20. Chapter 20

**AN: / Another relatively filler-like chapter, but I liked writing it.**

**I had a hard time thinking of how it would go down between Selena and Sideswipe when the relationship between him and Serena first started, but, in the end, I had to let it go. I didn't want her to get into a big fight with him because she's supposedly starting to trust more easily thanks to Ironhide and the other Autobots.**

**She's an overprotective sister, yes, but she's just that – a sister. She's in her own weird relationship, so she can't really argue over whether it's a good idea. Selena may be stubborn, but she knows who and what she is, and she's not a hypocrite. Also, she kind of sees how having Sideswipe there would work as extra protection for Serena. At this point, she's trying to think of him as more of a bodyguard than a boyfriend – keeps the homicidal urges at bay. **

**There is a forewarning of who **_**is **_**going to wind up in a fight with the Autobots in this chapter, but it's so vague, I don't think anyone will actually get it until the fight.**

**Normally, this would be the part where I go on and argue with Lawyer Dave about whether or not UlurNaga has any and all rights to Transformers, but I don't think I will today. Got to keep you guys on your toes. **

Weeks later Tessa returned in one of the best moods and was surprised to see Selena in the same mood. The mechanic had managed to trick Optimus into revealing what he could, and had expected to see the same Selena she had seen just before the Autobots' return to base. Instead, she saw a happy, smiling Selena running over to her, Serena right at her side. "Tessa," Serena called, throwing her arms around the older woman's waist. "We missed you!"

"I missed you guys too," she said, hugging the small girl back and giving Selena a tight squeeze too. Truly, she had missed the two girls. While anyone could tell there was a darkness deep inside them, a darkness Tessa now understood, it never really showed that often. Serena reminded her so much of Lucy, so bright and lively. Selena . . . Tessa had never met anyone like her. When she was with her sister, she was more like her mother than her sister, but, if you were, somehow, able to separate the two, you could get a glimpse at the young teenager underneath.

The few times Tessa had seen that teenager was when she was with Ironhide. Primus, Selena fought with him more than Tessa did, and more viciously too. It could seem ridiculous sometimes. It was like they were children, and Ironhide was centuries old! Selena she could understand – she had a habit of being a bit immature at times – but Ironhide, that was something else.

Then Selena had gone into that phase. She just stayed in that corner, refusing to eat or come down for anything. Tessa was almost as worried for her as she had been for the bots. She was like that the entire time they were gone, and then Ironhide took her on that drive and she came back as good as new! Sure, Tessa had had a heart attack when she had seen the girl, looking like _she _was the one who had been in the middle of a firefight, but, in the end, she was back to being Selena, and everyone knew that Ironhide was responsible.

Tessa had the felling he was responsible this time as well.

Now, though, she was just going to be happy that she was back on base with her extended family and try to find Optimus. "You wouldn't believe what happened while you were gone," Serena said, walking next to her.

"Oh, I heard," she growled. "Optimus filled me in."

"We're fine," Selena said calmly. "I put him down."

Tessa looked at Selena, worried. She could tell that, despite what Selena said, what had happened was bothering her more than she was willing to admit, but, if she needed Tessa's help, Tessa was sure that she would ask for it.

"We're goanna run our laps now," Serena said, taking her detour. "Everyone was in the garage last time we checked!"

"Including Optimus," Selena joked. Waving at Tessa and giving her another hug before fallowing her little sister.

It hadn't been that long since she and Ironhide had spoken to each other after her nightmare, and things had only changed a bit. The two still fought worse than any other duo on the base, but there was a new playfulness to it, a teasing that hadn't been there before. Also, both were careful not to cross any of those lines into being just mean. The new emotions in both of them were obvious to the rest of the base, and a collective sigh could almost be heard when everyone realized that hurricane Ironhide/Selena had taken a sharp turn into uncharted waters and wouldn't destroy the base.

Selena smiled, seeing Ironhide from the door in the garage. She didn't love him, he was right when he said she simply wasn't ready to go to that degree after everything that had happened, but she trusted him. She trusted him more than she had trusted Michael, which had surprised her. It was so weird. She just opened her arms and let him in. It was a weird experience to her. She was used to keeping to herself and Serena. That was it. It had been hard letting Sideswipe in the middle – she'd almost killed him a time or two – but she did it for Serena.

That, and, if Sides screwed up, she knew, at least, eight different ways to kill him with a screwdriver

Ironhide, though. She was letting Ironhide in in a way she never had let anyone in before. That made him very dangerous. There was so much damage she could do to her right now, and she'd be completely powerless to stop him. That's what this was, though. She knew that when she got into it. She'd have to let him in, risk him hurting her, to get . . . something. She wasn't even sure what it was she wanted from him. She wasn't sure what they were supposed to do. She'd never been in a relationship with anyone, and, she had to admit, starting one with a giant, alien robot may not have been her best idea. In fact, it might have been one of her worst ones. She couldn't even function in a normal, human relationship. How the hell was she supposed to be in a bispecies one?

"You're overthinking things again," Serena said, looking beside her to look at her sister. "I can tell. Your head is going down one of those weird, twisty roads with lots and lots of hills. Snap out of it. He's Ironhide. He's totally smitten with you."

Selena wasn't surprised that her sister automatically knew that she and Ironhide had started . . . whatever it was they had started. She just knew, just like Selena knew that Serena and Sideswipe had long since started something a little more stable than what Ironhide and Selena had started. Ironhide and Selena were like a couple of random chemicals – even they had no idea what would exactly come from mixing themselves. Optimus and Tessa? Serena and Sideswipe? They were like puzzle pieces. They fit together so perfectly. It was, almost, unfair.

"Just keep running," she said, smiling before ruffling her sister's hair. "And focus on your own relationship, okay?"

SS

After their run, Serena had run off to go see Sideswipe and go to Whataburger for another chocolate malt. Left behind, Selena couldn't help but think of the beginning of her nightmare, where Serena left, laughing, with the others. Was that to be her fate? To be left behind by her sister?

"Stop it," Ironhide's holoform said, gently chopping her in the back of her head with his hand. "I told you: only happy thoughts from now on." With that, he wrapped his holoform's arms around her form, content to just sway there for a bit.

He hated using the holoform. It felt so odd and false to him, but he could never have held Selena like this in his true form. He could crush her, and, when it came to Selena, anything was wonderful. No matter how much he felt the holoform was like a living lie, he was willing to lie if it meant he could be with her. They had rarely touched one another before the nightmares, now they were together every chance they could. Every now and then, he'd even leave after the other bots had gone to sleep and she would sneak from her cabin so she could sleep in him. Then, when she was tired in the mornings, she'd just sit inside him and they would talk. He knew she liked the alt mode more than the holoform, and he had to blame the men responsible for her capture. Still, he was a bit happy she preferred his alt and bipedal modes to the holoform. She'd once even told him to get rid of it after a particularly gruesome nightmare as she didn't want it there.

"The truck's enough," she had told him. "Just you."

He had never been so happy from such simple words.

"I'm fine," she said, placing her hands on top of the holoform's. "Just . . . I feel like a mom watching her daughter run off with some random guy I don't even know."

Ironhide had to chuckle at the analogy. "You're not going to kill him in his sleep, are you?" he asked, smiling.

"No," she answered. "Not unless he gives me a reason to." She sighed. "I'm just so used to her being completely dependent on me. Now Sideswipe's in the picture and . . ."

"You just want her to stay safe in your arms," he observed. "It's a natural response. You raised her on your own. It only makes sense that you'd want to protect her from everything."

She turned around to look at him. "I'm being overprotective, aren't I?"

Ironhide's smile widened. "Yes, but that's what I like about you," he answered, kissing her on the cheek before leading her to the truck. "Come on. We'll go to . . ." he stopped. He had no idea where he could take her. She never really left the base, and neither did he, but he didn't want to keep here there. He wanted to take her somewhere off the base, where it could be just the two of them.

"How about we just take another drive?" she suggested, knowing that he had frozen because he had no idea where to take her. "I'm sure we'll find something."

SS

In the end, the drive had landed them in the middle of the town Tessa lived in. "What is that place?" Ironhide asked, motioning towards a large club.

"It's just a club," Selena said. "You go in, you get drunk, you dance like a moron, and then you have your only sober friend drive you and your other drunken friends home." She smiled, remembering the one time she had ever been in a club. She had gone with Abigail, one of the other projects, to fill out a hit. Somehow, Abigail had managed to convince her to be the bait and lure him onto the dance floor, where she could shoot him and Selena could escape in the crowd's confusion. Honestly, Selena had hated the entire experience.

"Get off of me!"

A familiar scream brought Selena out of her thoughts. She turned to see Serena trying to avoid three burly guys. They had managed to surround her and where slowly inching farther and farther away from the silver Corvette Selena recognized as Sideswipe. What the hell happened? They were just supposed to go to Whataburger and get a freakin' shake!

Selena went to get out of the large truck to get her sister, but the doors locked and Ironhide stopped her. "Just watch," he ordered.

"Dammit Ironhide, that is my little sister, I am not leaving her out there where –"

"ARGH!"

Selena looked to see the origin of the familiar sound of an unsuspecting party being thoroughly punched in the gut. What she saw didn't disappoint.

Sideswipe's holoform, now standing protectively in front of Serena, had his fist firmly implanted in the stranger's gut, causing him to emit the cry. One of the others, livid at their friend's treatment, ran at him, intent to pound his face in, and were met with their earlier prey's foot in their face. The third, who seemed much smarter than the others, made a break for it.

He hadn't expected Selena to open the door right as he ran by.

"Don't mess with my little sister," she warned, giving him a good kick to the side as a reminder.

She looked to the spot where Serena had been, and wasn't surprised to see Sideswipe looking over her with a thoroughness she had once used when Serena was the one taking care of her. She could tell that, just like with her, Serena was trying to calm Sideswipe down and stop him, but he was insistent in making sure that none of the unwanted suitors had managed to hurt her.

"Cybertronians are protective of anyone they care about," Ironhide said from the radio, making sure he was low enough that no one else heard him. "She could never be safer with anyone else."

Selena smiled, finally getting it. "I know. I'm not happy about it, but, then, I wouldn't be a very good older sister if I just let any random guy near my sister without being a little cautious at first."

"Forget being a good sister," Ironhide joked. "You wouldn't be you. I swear; you're worse than Optimus when it comes to Tessa."

"Don't make me hurt you Blender," Selena joked.

"Bring it on, Tiny," Ironhide goaded.

Selena laughed. Now that the malice between the two of them was gone, she actually looked forward to their gibes and arguments. They spiced up her day. "Come on, big guy," she said, climbing back into the truck and leaving the offender on the cold ground. "We should get back before they do."


	21. Chapter 21

**AN:/ Hi. Sorry this took so long. After camp, I was exhausted and passed out. Then my birthday came along and I got writer's block and then all these things happened . . . I'm really sorry.**

One of the reasons it's so easy to write about Selena and her family life is because it kind of mirrors some of the relationships with my family members. Serena is based off of what I think my little cousin will become when she's older and, growing up without a father, I kind of have this very angry mentality about fathers who don't take care of their kids.

A few days ago, I was listening to this song about a dad who is about to leave his daughter behind but decides not to, and, after a long crying spree, I thought about Selena's relationship with her own father and the issues that she has with him that are even more unresolved than the ones I have with mine. This is the result. I may have a small arc after this where she deals with those issues her father has given her before intertwining with the Primary mechanisms story.  


"Just drop it, Ironhide," Selena warned, glaring at the mirror. "I don't care about it, and you shouldn't either. Let this die."

"No, Selena," he argued, "I won't."

This was not one of their normal arguments, where they were merely throwing opinions over something stupid as they had been doing between the almost sickeningly fluffy cuddle sessions they'd been having, this was bigger.

When the Autobots had asked Lennox what the big deal about a human's second name was, he'd explained, patiently, that the last name was as much a part of the person as their first name was. It was a connection.

That had made Ironhide think. Neither Selena nor Serena had given the others their actual names, let lane their last names, and now he wanted to know. He wanted to know everything about Selena, especially something this important! This wasn't just something as small as her favorite color; this was her NAME for Primus sake!

"Why can't you just let it go?" Selena demanded angrily. "I'm done with that part of my life. I don't want any connections to it!"

"You cannot just ignore the beginning of your life, Selena," Ironhide warned, his age showing in the wisdom of his words. "You started there. You were created with that name. That part of you can never die without you dying as a whole. It can be buried, it can be ignored until you have passed on -" he didn't ignore the painfully splitting of his Spark at the mere THOUGHT of losing her "- but you cannot simply ignore it because you don't like it."

"Don't give me that crap Ironhide," Selena growled. "Now let me out."

Ah, they had reached this part of their argument, the part where she runs away from what is happening. That was something he had tried to get her to acknowledge, but never could. When she or Serena were in danger, she'd fight tooth and nail, and, once the danger was over, she'd flee.

It wasn't a bad strategy, except for now, when she was using it to run away from him.

He knew that this was just her way of dealing with them fighting over important things now that he was important to her. While she liked arguing with him verbally in jest, she hated arguing with him in all seriousness, just as it bothered him, but leaving that part of her unattended could ruin her inside, and that was the last thing he wanted. He was not going to sit around and it for another part of her life to come and try and take her from him. He'd be damned before he let that happen!

"Dammit Ironhide, "she growled when she noticed the doors had become locked, "Let me out!" She thoroughly punctuated her statement with a good kick to the door, sure, though, not to hit anything too sensitive. No matter how angry she was at him, she could never hurt him.

"No," he answered, putting a holoform next to her and pulling her into his arms, mostly to keep her from flailing about. "You need to talk about this, Selena. You need to let it out, or it will destroy you from the inside out."

Selena fought back a tear. God dammit, she would not cry. She had cried in front of him so much! She would not cry again! "I'm asking you, Ironhide, please." her voice was small and not nearly as strong as it should have been. "Please don't do this. I chose these names for Serena and I so we could have a connection to each other that didn't involve HIM." she sneered the word in a way that made it obvious to Ironhide that she was talking about her paternal unit, who she never spoke of. "That man did a lot of things I'm not proud of to me, Serena and to others, and, knowing him, he did even more after we left and is still doing it now - if he's not dead." she turned in his arms to look him in the eyes, her gaze travelling across his handsome face that had been marred unjustly by a scar over his eye. She momentarily reminded herself that she would need to find and kill the con responsible for such a horrendous act against nature, scarring a perfect face like that. "Despite everything that's happened, everything she's been through, Serena is still so pure, so untouched. Me, I've got blood on my hands - Don't argue with me," she warned, seeing him about to start that. "I know it was needed, but that doesn't make the stains go away. I've got blood on my hands, but they're the blood of those who deserve it and, since a certain 'bot talked to me," she nudged his shoulder with her forehead since he'd been holding her arms tightly to his body, "I've had no issue with my conscience, but that man . . . I won't let his taint spread to us. I won't let that connection poison the family we have made here. Admitting I had that name . . . it's like I'm inviting him to just show up and ruin everything like he always does. I can't let that happen Ironhide. If he takes you from me, if he takes any of you from me, I don't know-"

"Shhhh," he said, pulling her to his chest. "It's alright. I understand. You don't want it to take us away." Just like how he didn't want it to take her away. He could understand that. He could understand her wanting to keep it away from them. She didn't want to be tainted, just like he didn't want her tainted by the war anymore than she already had.

He . . . cared about her too much.

She didn't cry. She didn't want to ever cry in front of him again. She had been thinking more and more about it and had, in the end, decided to ignore her father's existence just as she had her whole life. Ironhide just had to get involved. She was frustrated, but she was willing to let it go.

Her father had done so much to her without doing one thing for her. Even before the cons had come, she was just so tired of everything he was doing. She was thinking about running away when those strange men had shown up at her door all those years ago. She could still remember the last thing that selfish bastard had ever said to her. "Just shut up and go, you stupid, little brat." She scrunched up her eyes and buried her face into Ironhide's chest, trying to dispel the choking sent of the beer she had smelled on his breath that day as she held her little sister in her arms.

She knew Ironhide was right. She would have to deal with the scars that her father's greed, ignorance, and neglect had left on her, but, for now, she could simply lay, quite happily, in his arms and just let him be there for her when she needed him the most.

She slept inside him that night, partly because she didn't want to sleep alone and partly because she knew that Ironhide was worried about her being angry at him. Honestly, the man used to get off on pissing her off, now he was always worried about hitting a wrong nerve. It was weird, but cute. It made Selena feel safe around him.

Ironhide refused to go into stasis while she was inside him. He never did. He always made sure to stay wide awake to make sure that she was always warm. She never complained about the weather, which WAS warmer than most places, but it was still nowhere near the level she was used to. Serena once told him that she once wrapped herself in three comforters just to get warm enough to go to sleep. Ever since, he had made sure to warm himself as hi as he could to make sure that she was always comfortable when she was around him.

That's what he wanted for her: to be comfortable around him. Those cons had really messed her up, as he had seen by her preference to be around him his alt mode instead of his holoform for anything. Even Tessa had enjoyed her time with Optimus's holoform. Selena had never shied away from him, but she had never initiated anything between the two of them. He didn't like thinking about what they had done to her to make her so afraid of human contact beyond Tessa or Serena.

He Spark shook angrily, demanding he hunt every one of them down and . . . he had to stop himself from going any further. Selena was in his arms, snuggled into his chest and, occasionally, nuzzling his neck in her sleep and saying his name. Now wasn't the time to think of all the violent things he could do. Now was the time to enjoy loving her as much as he could before the storm came.

Bottom of Form


	22. Chapter 22

**AN:/ Yo. I know, I know. I've been gone way too long to be acceptable, but I gave you this REALLLLLLLLLY long chapter, so we're okay, right? Right?**

I mentioned earlier that I like writing Selena and her interactions with others because they remind me of other interactions I've seen in my life. My favorite interaction so far, though, has to be between her and her father.

Something I really wanted to drill into you guys is that, while she may not like it, Selena is her father's daughter. She has certain traits from him, and those traits are what have kept her alive as long as she has. She can hate it, and she can ignore it, but, at the end of the day, she cannot deny that there is SOMETHING of her father inside her, even though it's much diluted.

Also, this chapter went under some heavy reconstruction. In the end, I cut out a lot of what was going to be in here because I have plans. Lots and lots of plans. This isn't the last you'll be hearing about Selena and her family. They're all a bit nuts, so they'll gravitate towards each other sooner or later, and it will get oh, so very ugly.

I had intended to kill Joseph off, merely because I simply don't like him. AS THE WRITER OF THIS FIC, THAT IS MY RIGHT! In the end, though, I had to let him live. Like I said, Selena is TRYING to be a good girl, so she doesn't want to go too far down her old path again. It'll come back and haunt her, though, which I'm going to enjoy writing immensely.

Once again, we owe great thanks to the writer of the original story line, UlurNaga, whom we do worship as the Goddess of Transformers.

At this point, you can tell I am blatantly sucking up. But she's the most awesome writer here, so that's okay!

Also, I have the best reviewers EVER! Twenty chapters and this is still the second-most reviewed of my stories, AND GROWING! T^T I just love you guys so much! You're all so awesome!

Sorry, I'm feeling happy from the vanilla coffee I just chugged.

**Also, I mention something called the Xanatos Gambit here, which I can't really explain, but it you google the words Xanatos Gambit and Loki, the first link will have a well written article that revealed the awesomeness of Joss Wedon and has a link that explains it all. If you don't know who Xanatos is, you haven't lived.**

Now it's, the end of this author's note, and the beginning of the chapter, if you're wondering where Lawyer Dave is, you'll figure it out soon enough.

Selena couldn't let Ironhide's words go. He was right, though she didn't want to admit it. What her father had done to her and her sister was still deeply rooted in her mind, and she had never truly been able to just let it go. Even before her mother's death, she had known something just wasn't right about her father. He would meet the strangest people and stay out so late before coming home looking like death warmed over.

She always wondered how her mother had been able to stand it. She could tell that her mother wasn't happy there at all, but she stayed anyways. Why? She had never understood. She had seen her mother cry, she had seen the bruises on her face and, now that she was older, she understood just what had been happening, but her mother stayed. Her mother had stayed with that wretched man, and Selena could never understand why. Her mother wasn't a particularly weak woman. Quite the opposite. Selena was convinced that all of her strength of will she had gotten from her mother, so that couldn't have been it.

After the initial fight, Selena had tried not going to sleep. Bringing up things like her time in the Tank or her father had a habit of bringing back memories and nightmares she could do without, and she could take a few days without sleep if it meant never having to see that man's face again.

It wasn't that Selena was scared of her father. Oh, no. She would never be afraid of him after everything she had been through, but, unlike the other escapees, she was attempting to be a good, little girl for both Serena and the Autobots, and thinking of her father encouraged her to stray off the path that they wanted so badly for her. The incident with Michael had been a one-time thing, something that would only be repeated if someone thought they could get near her sister again. Barring that, she had to just sit back and let the world take it's coarse. Karma would get them eventually.

Problem was - the more Selena thought about it, the more she decided that karma was taking way too fucking long, and she didn't enjoy waiting for it.

Finally, she wound up googling him to see just what he had been up to while his only children were in the merciless hands of the Decepticons that he had handed them over to. With a name like Joseph Neimaiahs Lupin IV, it didn't take long to find him.

What she found made her decision for her. She stared at the screen for what seemed like hours, just staring at the man's face and the lies he had managed to sprout to the writer of the page. The sheer amount of BS he put out made her want to puke. She was related to this disgusting piece of filth? Her adorable, younger sister was procreated from this? She couldn't believe it. She almost refused to.

In the end, though, she had to, and she was so very angry about it.

He wasn't getting away with this. No way. There was no way she was going to sit back and let this slime ball live this kind of life after she had practically destroyed her entire soul just to stay alive in a war zone after he had thrown her out like a piece of garbage! There was simply no way it was ever going to happen in this life time!

The Autobots wouldn't approve, and Ironhide might never speak to her again, a thought that made her flinch terribly, but she had to do it. She had to confront her father on everything he had done to her and her sister, and, if she could, she had to ruin the life he had created for himself while she had suffered. Yes, it was selfish, but if she got anything from her father, it was that.

. . .

If you asked most people what their children's lives were worth, they would tell you that there was no price you could give them? If you asked Joseph, he would tell you it was a large house, a beautiful, complacent wife, and a plentiful business in the corporate world.

Sure, all it had taken to get his car business up and running was his only two daughters, but, really, was that enough to stop him? After all, it's not like they did anything for him. They just took up space and made his life that much harder by spending money on stupid things, like the youngest one's food. Honestly, didn't they get it? He deserved more than that. He deserved to be treated like a king!

And all it had taken was two little brats.

It had been a bit difficult to fake their deaths, but Starscream had made that quite easy for him. Now, he was laid up in his house, his wife asleep on the couch, wondering just how much more money he could squeeze out of a mom and pop store he had recently bought when the door next to them busted open.

Quickly, he jumped out of his chair as his wife fell off the couch, both starring at the girl in their door way. His wife's face was one of confusion and fear, wondering just how a girl in her early twenties had managed to get past her husband's security. Joseph's had warped into one of recognition and rage. It had been years, but he knew that face.

It was the same face as his first wife's mother.

"Did you miss me, Daddy?" the brat asked, stepping into the room. "I should hope you did. After all, it's been how many years since we were separated? 16 years? Seventeen? Sorry, my sense of time got screwed up while I was stuck in that damned cage you let them put me in." She looked around. "The place looks nice. Much better than the apartment we live in with Mammi while you were a drunkard. Then again, you did pay a good price for it, didn't you?" She looked him in the eye.

"I don't know how you got in here, brat," he said, making sure to use his old insult. "But you're not staying. I've got a good life now, and I'll be damned before I let some little piece of shit come here and ruin it all for me. Now I don't know how you got away from them, but I suggest you go hide in whatever hole it was you crawled out of to come here before I-"

The dagger whizzing by his face shut him up promptly. "You still don't know when to be quiet and listen to your betters, do you? Always rambling on about how life should focus on you, well suck it up, because it doesn't." She walked over to him. "You sold me and my sister to become science experiments and used the money to build a blasted empire!" She placed a hit to his gut. "All these years I had to fight and kill and hide just to keep food on the table for Lilly, and here you are, living off our pain and suffering." She hit him again in the face. "I spent years of my life trying to make sure we stayed alive and you just get a free ride? You think you can just throw us out to those things and forget about us? You think we will just go away!" She threw several more hits, sending him to the ground.

This wasn't the way things were supposed to go. She was supposed to be dead. He'd heard from the others that no one had survived! How the hell?

"Please," his wife begged, "Stop it!"

His daughter swung to glare at her. "Give me one good reason not to kill him for what he did. One reason why I shouldn't beat him to death for everything he forced onto my little sister?"

"You don't want to kill," she said. "I knew your mother. If you're really her child, you don't want anyone's blood on your hands!" Never before had Joseph been so happy to have found himself a wife who as so desperate for money and prestige that she was willing to do anything to keep him alive.

Then he saw the smirk. The horrible, disgusting smirk that he knew mirrored his own smirk when he tore down shops, lives, and people. "Though I hate to admit it," the girl said, "I'm not just my mother's daughter. I'm his too."

. . .

She hadn't really been hitting him that long before she tired out and sat down, covered in sweat. Eventually, she looked at him with indecision clearly overtaking her face. Would she kill him? Would she rob him? Just what was going on in that messed up little head of her's?

Eventually, she sighed, shaking her head. "We're going to take one of your cars. We'll go to the police station, where you're going to admit that you sold your two daughters to a slave ring in Iraq that was recently taken down. You will then give Lilly and I all assets, including the cars, houses, and money in all your bank accounts. The business will go to the sniveler over there so she can have something to live off on." Joseph didn't fail to notice that his wife had stopped looking so distraught once it was mentioned that she was still going to be rich when this was all over. "After that, you're going to disappear into the system. I will never see hide nor hair of you again. When you get out, you will live your life far away from here, and you will never, ever, come anywhere near us. If you do, I'll show you all the different little tricks I learned as a mercenary. Understand?" When he didn't answer, she got up, motioning that she was about to hit him again. "Do you understand?"

"Just one question, Brat," he said. "Why not just kill me. It's what I would do, and you've proven just how much more like me you are."

"One," she said, "I'm not you. I never will be. I may be violent, and I may be selfish, but I will never be as cold hearted as you. I know my actions have consequences, and I hardly doubt I'm going to go as far as you for something as stupid as money." She scoffed, like the very idea made her sick. "And two: there are people who would never look at me the same again. There are people who care about me more than you ever could, and I'm not risking my relationships with them over you. You are not and have never been worth it."

. . .

They were outside the Police station when he stopped her. "Last question Rose," he said. "You've had 16 years to get back at me, times much better than now, so why? Why attack me now, after you've made a home for yourself?"

Selena was quiet. "Because, in the first article I read about you, you said Mammi never took care of or loved me." She looked him in the eye. "My mother loved Serena and I more than any human being on this planet, and I'll spend the rest of my life undoing the damage you did to her reputation."

"That's it?" he asked, incredulous, "You're destroying everything I've done for the past 16 years because of some dead bitch?"

"I'm doing it because the voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like my host back home won't let me just kill or cripple you for life. I would suggest you be grateful for his intervention."

. . .

She was waiting on a bench outside of the police station when Ironhide and the others came around the corner, and angry Tessa, Lennox, and Serena among them. "Have you lost your ever-loving mind woman!" Ironhide bellowed, his holoform slamming the door to the truck angrily as he stomped towards her. Serena was right behind him, followed by an equally irate Sideswipe and Lennox, and a worried Tessa and Optimus.

Before they could reach her, though, Serena stopped, her face locked onto the man near the window, a pair of handcuffs on his wrists. "Is that . . ." She trailed off, not knowing if she wanted an answer.

Selena moved next to her, blocking her view of him and, more importantly, his view of her. "Don't look at him," she ordered, turning her around.

"What is he doing here?" Serena asked, terrified.

"And why do all of his bruises look suspiciously like they are the same size as your fists?" Lennox asked, looking at her.

"Not all of them," she argued. "Most of the ones on his chest are going to be the size of my foot."

"Slagit, woman," Ironhide growled, pulling her into his arms with the desperation of a dying man. "Don't you ever simply disappear like that again." He pulled away to look at her carefully. "You need to leave the base, you tell someone and I will drive you there, for Primus sake!"

"We were worried sick," Tessa agreed. "You can't just go off in the middle of the night. If Serena hadn't found the article on the computer back in your cabin, we would have never known where you went!"

"Yeah, um, about the cabin -" Selena was cut off by a lawyer arriving.

"Rose Lupin?" he asked, looking at the group of strange people, all surrounding one very young girl who he assumed was his new client.

"That would be me," she said, stepping forward to shake his hand. "But, please, call me Selena. I haven't used the name Rose in over a decade now."

"Yes well, I can see you are quite different from your father, if you are his child," he said, looking at her suspiciously. "I am Mr. Lupin's lawyer, Dave. I'm here at his request. He has told me he will agree with your terms." The man shook his head, as if he couldn't believe he was saying this. "On the condition that you give him ten minutes alone with your sister, Lilly."

Serena looked confused. She knew he had another name beside Serena, but it had been so long since she had used it that she had forgotten it completely. Selena, however, was now gripping Ironhide's arm like it was the rope keeping her from falling down the side of the grand canyon. "I told my father my rules." Selena bit out. "If he doesn't like them, he can go home. Then, tomorrow, he can read in every paper I can talk to and explain what are family was like before and after my mother died. I assume you know what he did."

"Mrs. Lupin explained it all to me, yes." He sighed. "I see. Well, the assets will be in your given name by the end of the day. I assume you and your sister will not be testifying against him."

"If it looks, for one second, that he's going to walk, I've got more witnesses than he has employees."

Dave groaned internally. When he had learned that Joseph's daughters were still alive somewhere, he knew, that day, that they would come back to cause him trouble. He just hadn't expected the eldest daughter to have her father's sick mind when it came to punishment, nor had he expected her to have the mind to pull any of it off. It was as if she had been given the worst qualities from her father, but the best from her mother. He knew he should be happy this was all she was doing.

As if knowing exactly what he was thinking, Selena added, "This isn't over, by the way." She smiled at his frightened expression. "I've got a Xanatos Gambit for that man that would make the most Machiavellian psychopath question my paranoia. Do not mess with me. If he takes one step anywhere near Serena or myself or anyone here-" she motioned to the people around her "- I am going to make what happened to my sister and I look like a damned stroll through field of flowers, am I clear?"

Dave groaned. Yep, she may have her grandmother's face and her mother's morals (you don't mess with my family - I don't ruin you and your life forever) but, sadly, she had her father's paranoia and brains. It would be best to jut nod his head and let the girl have her way.


	23. Chapter 23

**An:/ Again, I'm unnaturally sorry for taking this long. There was a issue where I had to go to D.C (I didn't kill anyone, I swear) and I had no connection to the outside world besides my iPad and, as I have often complained, I can't post any of the writing on my notes on the site. Blame the owners, not me.**

**Anyways, I'm sorry for taking so long. Lots of love to my reviewers and, to anyone who like Teen Titan fanfiction with Slade, check out the story, ****How Doth the Crocodile**** by Obsidian Sam. Its great writing!**

After a lot of screaming, lecturing, and speeches on how, no matter how mad you are, you should never sneak out of a military base to go beat your estranged father into a pile of crap as opposed to a piece of it, Selena was finally able to explain about her and her sister's inheritance.

"He's just giving this to you?" Tessa asked curiously. "Just handing it over? Just like that?" she looked at the younger woman carefully, not wanting to accuse her, but still not believing this was guilty charity on her father's part.

"He may or may not have had a choice in the matter," Selena answered, not looking anyone there in the eyes.

"Selena," Optimus warned.

"In my defense," Selena argued, "The man insulted my dead mother. Something had to be done. Preferably before the end of the week."

"Selena," Lennox warned. "There were legal ways to go about this. You didn't have to take this route."

Selena didn't look at any of them; instead, she looked at the glass doors of the police station. "My sister and I were sold to an alien species the general public isn't allowed to know exists, tortured, experimented on, and, eventually, erased from existence. Our DNA isn't the same. Even if we had taken this to court, there's no proof that we're his daughters anymore. The whole thing would have been dismissed as two girls' attempt at getting a quick payday and all he would have lost was some stock.

"He wasn't going to jail any other way, Lennox. Either he admits it, or we reveal the secret about the Autobots, and you know the higher ups would never let you guys do that. Not for a couple of kids."

"Perhaps," Optimus agreed, "Yet it still should have been a decision between everyone here and on base, not just you."

Selena sighed. She wasn't going to win this fight. She couldn't put her heart into it. She knew what she had done to her father wasn't just wrong - it was selfish, and she knew that they had higher expectations of her self control, but, when it came to that man, the fact that she hadn't killed him was a testament to the fact that she was, in fact getting better. It would just take a bit more time.

Selena saw her (oh, how she loathed this term for such a stupid, selfish . . . thing) step-mother come out of the police station crocodile tears streaming down her face. The cameras headed straight for her, and Selena noticed a look pass over her face as she saw the group from across the street.

"Sideswipe, take Serena and drive away," she ordered as her step mother made her way towards them.

"Wha?" Poor Sideswipe was confused, but started walking Serena to his alt mode.

"Do it, now!" She pushed to two further towards the car and made sure they were in it before turning just in time to grab her step mother's hand before it made it to her face.

"You lying bitch," she screeched, trying to land a hit, but being held back by officers. "You knew! You knew the company was going to be yours, didn't you! This isn't over. I'll end you for this!"

"Ma'am," Optimus said, his voice calm but firm with the hysterical woman. "I must ask that you please calm down. I know Sele - Rose quite well, and she would not have done anything of the sort. Any deception you have seen is your husband's doing, not hers."

Any rational person would have claimed down, especially in the face of someone like Optimus Prime, but Maria kept screaming, almost in tongues. Eventually, the police pulled her into the station to calm her down and the reporters turned their fury and frenzy on Selena.

'Are you really the daughter of Mr. Lupin?' 'Do you intend to truly run the company?' 'Was that your sister in the corvette just now?' 'Are you in a relationship?' 'What will happen to the company?' 'Did you escape a life as a child soldier in Iraq?' 'Who are the soldiers with you?' 'Is that woman your foster mother?' 'How do you feel about your father's confession that he was responsible as opposed to your mother?' 'Do you believe he is responsible for your mother's death?' 'Where will you go now?'

The questions kept coming. On and on, over and over, again and again, it was driving her insane. This was why she had wanted Maria to take the company. With a company comes Press and fame. Selena wanted neither. She wanted to live her life freely as Selena. Not in a beautiful, golden cage as Rose, especially not when she knew that Ironhide could never stay there with her.

"My name is Rose Lupin. When I was five and my sister was one our father gave us to some strange men who took us somewhere. Where we were and what happened is confidential and, if you care enough about it, you can ask the authorities, I would prefer you leave my sister and I out of it.

"While I am taking my father's assets as compensation for his actions so that I can take care of my sister, the company WILL be going to my step mother, as I have no wish to be involved with a company built on money made from my father's actions sixteen years ago. My sister and I ask that you respect both our privacy and our wish to remain as far from our father's world as possible. Thank you."

With that, she let Ironhide lead her to his own Alt mode and shoved her in before running to the other side, fighting reporters that had surrounded him on the way, and driving off quickly, followed by Tessa and Lennox in Optimus, who had far more easy a time getting the reporters to move out of his way.

"That should keep those jackals at bay," Selena said. "They'll have spazz fits over my sister and I for a while, report my father as a disgusting monster and, eventually, find another target." She smiled ruefully, "With any luck, Lindsey Lohan will end up in rehab again."

"Do you think this is funny?" Ironhide growled. "Your father works with the Decepticons! You could have been killed going after him!"

Selena sighed, nuzzling into the leather of the seat under her. "I was fine. It was just my father, and he can't hurt me." Her voice was so calm and sure that he almost believed that she truly would have been fine had they not come to get her. Almost. She was his . . . well, he didn't really know what she was to him just yet, but he knew she was important. Too important to let her just go running off wherever she wanted.

"He did a damn good job the first time," he rumbled, this time making sure the entire car shook with his anger. He could still remember the fear from her nightmares, the hatred and anger that had rolled off her in waves when her father was mentioned. Not to forget that he had a very long list of the things he had been planning to do to the man himself for what he had done to them.

How could she have put herself in danger like this? Didn't she know how terrified she made him just when she disappeared from is sight on base? Did she think he wouldn't care when she disappeared from everyone's sight! He had been in a frenzy greater than he had ever known was possible. The only time he could compare it to was when he had been paralyzed and thought that glitch, Mike, had shot her. He had hoped that the crippling fear and anxiety was something he would never have to endure again, but, in the end, he had come to see her that night and found that she was nowhere on base.

"He said it was her fault," she said eventually. "He said he thought she had faked her death and taken us away." Her entire body trembled with the anger and frustration at her father's actions and words. "Just where the hell does he get off, talking about her like that after everything he had done just to cover his own ass. Our mother was the kindest thing to ever exist on this earth.

"She didn't have to stay and look after us. She could have run off with that guy that always came over, but she didn't. She stayed and took care of us. She went through all of the stuff Dad threw at her and never raised a sure hand against I'm to take care of us, and he wants to just go off and blame her for everything! No, just no. Life doesn't get to work that way. Not when mom is involved! I swear, I should just turn around and -"

"Down, Tiny," Ironhide cut her off. "There is no way I'm going to let you out of my sight for a while. Barring a mission, you are staying right next to me until I say otherwise."

Selena glowered at the mirror, hoping that that was where he was watching from, but not really sure. "I'm going to give you about thirty seconds to think of all the reasons that is NOT going to fly."

"Argue all you want," Ironhide said smugly. "It's not going to change a thing. You're staying right where you are -next to me."

"I've got to leave your side sometime!" Selena argued.

"You're not leaving until I know you're safe again!" Ironhide bellowed, grabbing her arms tightly and making her face his holoform. "Slagit, woman! Do you have any idea what you've done to me the past hours! Do you! You cannot just disappear like that!"

He had expected her to flip out. To be angry at him. Instead, she just looked at is chest. "Do you know why I like the alt mode and bipedal modes more than the holoform?" she asked suddenly, still not looking at him. "It's because of the spark."

"Spark?" Ironhide asked, confused. "What spark?"

"When you touch me," she explained. "It's like there's this small spark that spreads all across me. When normal people touch me it doesn't feel like that, not even other holoforms. Just yours." He could tell she was fighting back the tears. "I don't understand it. I hate not understanding something. This is all so confusing. I'm so scared of what's happening, but I'm scared that it won't happen. I don't know what to feel anymore!

"I used to be able to keep a handle on my emotions. I never got so angry at my father. I knew he was terrible, but this time. Why do I suddenly feel everything in extremes? Why can't I just numb myself off like I used to. It never hurt then. It never bothered me."

Ironhide grabbed her and pulled her closer to him. "You can't cut yourself off anymore, Selena. You just can't. Take it from me: acting as if nothing happened doesn't make it go away. It makes it fester. You don't want that. It will only be easy for so long, but you won't be who you are now, and that's who everyone wants around."

Selena put her own arms around him, grabbing onto the grey fabric of his tank top. "Even after what I did?" she asked carefully. "I almost killed him, Ironhide. I went there with the intention. Letting him live was a last minute decision."

"You left him alive, though," Ironhide reasoned, his alt mode now pulled over so he could focus all his attention on the little femme he was holding. "That's proof enough that you a still the better person, and, Selena-" he pulled her chin up to make her look at him "- I will ALWAYS want you around. We've been over this. Everything that has to do with your past - I don't care. Who you are now is what matters, and you're still my Selena."

. . .

Once the two finally got to the base, Selena quite proud of herself for not crying through their conversation, she decided to ask the oddest question she had in her life. "Ironhide?" she called, making sure that her voice was low enough that she didn't wake anyone. "Can you -the holoform you - that is to say -" URGH! This was not going well. She wasn't good with words in the first place unless she was conning someone, but she was never this tongue-tied.

Ironhide, however, didn't seem to mind. He understood what she wanted and simply nodded, noticing that Sideswipe was also parked next to the window to Serena's room. No one would fault him for staying. "Come on, Tiny," he said, picking her up as if she were a child. "Time for bed."

"You know," she said as he walked into the house, "I should be offended by this."

"You didn't seem to mind last time," he smirked, remembering when she had clamped herself onto him after the spar. Now that he was willing to admit what he felt for her, he could look back at the experience with a fond smile. "I happen to remember you not wanting me to put you down."

Selena paled as she remembered her moment of weakness in front of him. Part of her was ashamed that she had been so clingy, literally, in the beginning of their relationship, and the other was disappointed that she was so distracted that she could remember whether or not she had felt that spark when he held her that time. Either way, she thought it would be better for everyone if she just let the whole thing drop and act as if nothing happened as he came to her room.

It was very plain, looking like a dorm room. It had a bed that had once faced the window, but was moved when she and Ironhide had begun their nightly meetings. It had white sheets that were rumpled and unkempt as she never made it, deciding there was no point as no one came in and she was just going to sleep in them again anyways. The walls were a pure cream, almost like a hotel room's. There were no pictures or anything adorning the room; her dresser was as plain as the walls, all the drawers filled with cotton undergarments, jeans, and multiple tank tops of different colors. In her closet was the sole dress Tessa had talked her into buying at one of their trips to the mall.

Ironhide looked down at Selena and found that she looked embarrassed. He couldn't understand why. The room fit her perfectly: only filled with necessities, no unnecessary effort wasted changing it, and everything easily moved in case she had somewhere else to go.

Selena, however, didn't see it as that. Not now. When she had first gotten it, she had decided that decorating would be a hassle and just decided to leave everything as it was. Back then, she had still thought that she would be out of there in no time, but then Ironhide had happened and, after subconsciously deciding that she would stay, she hadn't had the time to decorate like any normal girl would have once they were given their own room. Instead, she had trained and spent her time with Ironhide. Now she wished she had bought that can of paint.

Sensing there was something wrong. Ironhide placed a small kiss on her forehead. "Come on, Tiny. Let's get some sleep." The two curled up under the three comforters that Selena had managed to steal, and Ironhide realized that she still was feeling a bit cold. Even with all those comforters she was still not used to the lack of warmth. That was why she was always trying to sleep in his alt mode. He was warmer than her bed.

He'd have to remember this for later.

For now, though, he slid into bed behind her, pressing the holoform's torso to her back as closely as he could manage without hurting her, feeling the warmth of her frail human body pressed against him. This was what he needed, this was what he had lived all these years for, and he would live so many more if it meant that he could feel it for however long she could give these moments to him.


	24. Chapter 24

**Not a long chapter, I know, but I wanted to write this before I do anything. Don't ask me why, it just happened****.**

**I don't really know what to make of this, except that I think Selena kind of took hold for a while there. All** **throughout this series, while she does seem string, she hasn't been able to successfully do something by herself. She always needed help and, when she did do something by herself, she still kind of screwed up because she made the others worry for her. I think I just wanted to make the point that she is still top dog here, and nothing's gonna change about that.**

**Lots of love to my reviewers. 99 reviews, people! We're coming up to a hundred! So, as a reward: hundredth reviewer gets a chapter or one shot for this written to their specifications!**

**Disclaimer: I DON WANNA!**

About a week after the entire incident, Selena was still getting chewed out at random intervals. It had gotten to the point that she was getting yelled at for her actions by people she didn't even know that she knew. One in particular had hugged her and told her not to worry them like that again. Had it not been for her current rules of keeping herself in line, she would have broken his spine getting him off of her.

Ironhide was a bit late to visit her that particular night.

After a week, though, Selena had to put her foot down. For more reasons than one. "Dad owned a house near here," she explained to everyone as they talked in the garage. "It's pretty isolated and huge. There's a staff and they're a bit lost, so the butler asked us to come and clarify just what is going to happen to their jobs."

"What is going to happen to their jobs?" Lennox asked. "I doubt you can keep a full house staff with no income."

"You didn't see Dad's bank accounts," Selena guessed. "Trust me, we can afford to keep them on. Besides, I don't see any reason not to. Some of them live there and have nowhere else to go. Kicking them out would be the equivalent of evicting them for no good reason, and I've had enough landlords to know better."

Serena shivered. "Samuel was the worst," she pointed out, and Selena fought back a snarl at the name.

Samuel, sadly, had been on the list of people near the sisters who had disappeared mysteriously just before they moved from the town. If you asked anyone in the town, if they would admit even being alive at the time, they would tell you that he had gone missing shortly after a scream of "SIS!" had echoed through his apartment complex along with several strings of curses, bangs, and a vey loud, shrill cry that sounded more bestial. After that, no one had seen hide nor hair of I'm again, and, when the state police came to investigate, no one mentioned the two sisters who were staying in his apartment complex as tenants, or that the youngest of the two was coveted by everyone in the village, though no one was willing to brave her sister's wrath for her hand.

In the end, the entire thing was written off as one of those stories that you tell your grandchildren in the dead of night, when you are sure that the danger has either passed, or is no longer important to you.

Selena shook off the memories. She didn't need them here. She and Selena were safe among their friends and, if something happened - Selena was still not able to dispel the instinct to think of all the things that could go wrong at any minute - she could easily handle it alone.

Unless another old friend showed up.

Still, this was not a time for reminiscing. She was eventually okay'ed to go and talk to the workers, but Serena had opted to stay as she didn't feel they needed two of them for such a little job.

Thought Ironhide had once told her that she was never leaving base without him again, she found he had been given a solo mission and was leaving the same day she was in the other direction. Most girls would have cried or postponed. Selena merely took it a clear sign that she was supposed to go alone and wished him luck, knowing he wouldn't need it.

When she got there, though, she saw why it may have been a good idea to keep all the Autobots from her house as far as possible. Standing in her new drive way, faces angrily set in disapproval, were seven far too familiar faces.

Her estranged friends from the Tank days had come for a visit.

. . .

"Have you lost your mother freak up mind!" Carol demanded, slamming her fists down on the table in front of her. "Getting involved with the press? Are you trying to get the rest of us all killed!"

Carol had been the oldest and, besides Selena, had spent the longest time in the cages. She had also had a sibling who had been taken into the Tank. Ever since, the spitfire blonde had been liable to bite off not only the hand that fed her, but any hand close to her if she felt like it.

"Ah hate tah agree wi' little miss perfect over there," Daryl said, pointing at Carol, "But this ain't the smartest move y'all have made."

Daryl's Georgian drawl, while usually comforting and disarming, literally, did nothing for the atmosphere. He had been pretty young, about eight, when he had been brought to the cages, but he'd only been there two years before the break out. As an orphan from the streets, he had had no place to go afterwards, so he wound up like the rest of them.

"I know you've usually got a reason, Sugar Lips," Shane said, sprawled across a chair like he owned the damn thing. "But I can't see this ending well for anyone, especially if we got to cut our losses and scram."

Instead of yelling at him for his stupid nick names, like she used to, Selena merely threw her shoe, a combat boot, that landed right in the boy's face, catching him off guard and leaving his self proclaimed perfect face with a large red mark in the middle of it. Shane always made a job out of pissing her off, and she was already in a bad mood.

The other four, Dale, Lori, Andrea, and Sophia, had been decisively quiet. They had been the only ones who had spent less than a year in the cages and had never even seen the Tank, but just a week there was enough to make you part of the little guild they had. They weren't nearly as violent as the others, deciding instead to take the path of doctors and healers, checking up on everyone once and a while to make sure that no one had gotten themselves hurt worse than they could fix. Besides the sisters, they we the only ones to stay together.

"Not only that," Carol said, "But Michael's gone missing. None of us can reach him."

Selena sighed. She really didn't want to get into this with them. Talking with the others always made her exhausted and irritable. "You won't be hearing from him ever again." She explained. "He tried to pull a fast one on me and kill my sister."

The others were quiet for a while. Selena had done some very scary things in the name of her sister's protection. Even they knew that they weren't exempt. Still . . .

"He's one of us, Selena," Carol argued, standing up. "You can't just throw him to the wolves like that!"

"You wan to go and get him? Fine. Go and get him, but don't be surprised when you see my daggers shoved straight into you fucking head."

Everyone was now on edge. This was the Selena they had last seen, this bestial, merciless, ruthless creature who was never above tearing anything in its path apart if it had to. Them included.

"That don't mean ya get ta' decide the man's fate on you're own," Daryl warned. "Had it been anybody else, ya know we'd never lift a fuckin' eyelash, but Michael-"

"We're mercs, Daryl," Selena warned. "I highly doubt you're that worried about him. He made s choice, now let him live with it."

"He's alive?" Dale asked, surprised.

"Don't get your hopes up," she warned. "Do you honestly think I'm going to just let hi walk away after trying something like what he did? He had to be put down, one way or another."

"Who made you god?" Carol asked, stepping towards Selena, her stance blatantly screaming that she was looking for a fight.

"I've got to agree with Carol," Shane said, standing next to her. "We're not in the early years anymore. It took a lot of effort to keep each other alive, and turning on one another like this? Its not right."

"You don't want to do this again," Selena warned. "It got ugly the last time, it's gonna be worse this time."

"Bite me," Carol growled as she lunged for Selena, Shane right behind her.

What happened next can only be defined as a glorified ass beating the likes of which no mortal on this earth has ever seen. Insults were thrown, kicks were administered with a frequency and diligence of masters. The groans and cries that came from that room for the next thirty minutes resembled a violent episode of animal planet.

By the end of it, Selena straightened herself and looked at the two very remorseful fighters, bowed before her more because the force of her feet had pushed them there than because they were truly sorry. Each had a map of marks, scrapes and bruises that, for months, would remind them just who the greatest fighter from the old days was. Selena herself was sporting nothing worse than a small bruise on her hip that would be gone within days. Had she not had to worry about making sure thee was nothing for the Autobots to see, the fight would have been much more one-sided and there would have been far more damage to the two on the ground.

Eventually, Daryl had called her off them. "We just wanted to make sure something hadn't happened after you went public," he explained. "Now that we can see you're very fine, we'll get out of your way."

Selena knew better. Among the lot of them, when they saw one another, there had to be a fight between all of them, and Daryl wasn't about to back down easily.

Proving her right, Daryl threw a punch at her jaw as he came up beside her in an attempt to get the needed bonus time he wanted.

It may have backfired when she instead grabbed his wrist.

"Oh, you want to play too?" Selena asked, making sure to break the wrist thoroughly. "Why didn't you say something earlier?"

After a fifteen minute beating, Daryl was covered in slightly less bruises as the other two - she had broken the guy's wrist - and was now being carried out of the house by the others. "We'll get them some help," Sophia explained, pushing them into a car. "I don't know how much good it will do, but they'll deal with it for now."

With that, she also climbed in the car and Selena watched as they drove away, angry and looking for a proper fight.

She would ave to wait though. She had proven, once again, that she could handle them, that was enough for her. She hadn't realised how much she had needed that reassurance after the Michael fiasco until today. After having to continually lean on the Autobots, Ironhide especially, she now knew she still had it, and that was enough for one day.

Sure that Ironhide would come to get her as soon as he was done with his mission, Selena wrote a quick letter of explanation and instructions to the butler, picked a random bedroom, crawled on top of the sheets, and passed out, exhausted more than she was willing to admit.


	25. Chapter 25

**Hey people! I know, I know, I've been away for a bit, but several things happened, like my first driver's ed classes, and my bf inviting me to a trip with his youth group that made me . . . happy. Oh, so very happy. Then I did a new cover for this series, which, I would like to point out, made me hurt a little in the neck, spine, and right hand.**

**This chapter is dedicated to SJSGirl, my 100th reviewer! Lots of love to you! She asked for some SideswipeXSerena fluff, so I wrote this. It's not really long, but I like writing it. Lots of love to all my wonderful reviewers, and even more love to UlurNaga, our favourite person ever! We love her, don't we.**

**This would, usually, be the part where Lawyer Dave comes and tells me that UlurNaga owns nothing, but, seeing as he has passed out from the lack of oxygen from . . . you don't really need to know what, I don't think he can, so ON WITH THE SHOW!**

* * *

Two weeks later, Serena and Selena, who were now staying at the closest of their father's old houses, came into the garage to find a very depressed Sideswipe, a laughing Tessa, and an incredibly smug Ironhide.

"Hahahaha! Are you serious?" She asked, clutching her stomach as the two girls walking into the large building

"…stop laughing." Sideswipe snapped irritably; his pride severely bruised. Even more so when he looked and saw Serena walking over to climb onto his shoulder, she had gotten very good at that recently, with a very confused look on her face.

Her sister, as confused as she was, climbed onto the small ledge on his chest plate right in front of Ironhide's face with a raised eyebrow. She hadn't seen that look on Ironhide's face since she had lost to him in another of their little fights. Just what was going on?

"HAHAHA!" Tessa clutched at her stomach as she doubled over in hysterics, "Oh God it hurts to laugh!" she hollered, struggling to breathe, "The speed limit? For a week; you? It serves you right for using me as a betting chip!"

Taking a few deep breathes and wiping the tears out of her eyes, she looked away from the slightly miffed Sideswipe and turned to Ironhide with an evil expression.

The two sisters had to fight back their laughter, Selena because her balance was so very important and Serena in an attempt to make Sideswipe feel better about the whole thing, though she had a reason to believe that he may have had it coming.

"Would've serve you right if you'd lost too," Tessa said, looking at Ironhide.

"Lost what?" Selena asked. She looked at Ironhide, a frown on her face. "What did you two bet?"

"Whether Optimus or I would make a move first," Tessa said, scowling at both of them.

Selena frowned and whacked Ironhide's cheek with the back of her hand, doing more damage to her hand than his cheek. "No betting on our friends," she ordered, pointing at him. "Big, no-no."

"And Tessa's right," Serena said, wagging her finger at Sideswipe like a mother. "You deserved losing that one!"

Tessa smiled. It was great watching the two sisters and how they interacted with their respective bots.

With Serena and Sideswipe, it was like the two young kids in love. There was this innocence to their relationship that you just never find in relationships in older couples.

With Selena and Ironhide, it was like the married, old couple with all their fights, but you could tell that they really loved each other very much underneath all the squabbling they managed to do.

Still, she loved being around the both of them. They were like little sisters to her. She was still shocked at all the things they had never managed to do when they were little kids. It was sad. They'd never done things she had take for granted as a kid, like going to the park, watching Disney movies, playing games with other, random kids, eating a burnt Christmas dinner with her family, falling asleep on the couch and waking up to find your dad moved you to your bed, or having them be there to tell you all those little bits of advice on how to survive life. It made her . . . depressed.

"At least now I won't have to worry so much about you getting into an accident that I'll have to fix. Whatever will I do with so much peace and quiet?" she grinned, nudging the Corvette with her hip before leaning casually on the roof. "Don't worry Sideswipe; I hear humble pie is very delicious."

"Humble pie?" Ironhide and Sideswipe both asked at the same time. That was when Tessa realized that they had probably never heard the term before; after all they were robots…they didn't even eat pie! She put a finger on her chin, trying to find a way to word it without it seeming complicated.

"Just let it go, Blender," she said, smiling as she patted him on the space next to her. "Just nod your head and let it go." She had been working on getting him ale to function outside the base. She was not getting a lot of progress.

"I've got some work to do," Tessa said, walking away, "I'll see you guys later," with that, she turned and made her way to her to her work bench.

While Selena and Ironhide ran off to do . . . whatever it was that Selena and Ironhide did, Serena smiled at Sideswipe and motioned to the road they always traveled down when they wanted to go on a joy ride. "I won't tell if you won't," she said smirking.

* * *

"WOOOOOHOOOOO!" Serena screamed, her torso outside the open window on the passenger side, her curly, black hair whipping in the wind! "This is awesome!"

Sideswipe laughed. "Get back in here before you fall out," he ordered, one of the holoform's arms wrapped around her waist. He tried to keep it as innocent as possible, several threats from Selena running through his mind.

"She loves you," Serena claimed falling into her seat and putting both her arms around his holoform, feeling the warmth underneath her fingers.

She loved that he did that, made his holoform hotter than a human body because he knew she was always cold even in this desert area. It was just one of so many things he did to make her happy.

She only wished he would just stop treating her like she was made of glass.

She knew it was probably her sister's fault, she had heard a lot of her sister's threats to him, and she knew hat was, probably, why he had never so much as tried to touch her since he had admitted he liked her. She didn't want to go too far with him, she wasn't exactly experienced, but she really liked him, and she was getting more and more worried that he didn't WANT to touch her, but how do you go about talking about that?

She really needed to talk to Tessa.

They finally pulled up in front of a cliff they always stopped at when they wanted to just get away from the world. She crawled her was over the section between the two of them and settled in his lap, something she often did when they were alone.

All the other times she had, though, her foot hadn't slipped between the small space between the seat and the door and just barely brushed the old fashioned axle thing that rolled his windows up and down.

She hadn't expected the entire car to shake.

"Sides?" she said, worried.

"Y-Yeah? W-What is it?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you alright?"

"O-Of course," he said, smiling at her. "I'm fine."

She shook her head, smiling fondly. She loved Sideswipe, more than he knew, but she was going to have to teach him how to lie better if he wanted to lie to her about something like that. Still, she was going to file this under the long list of little things that drove him nuts. You know, for they day it was necessary.


	26. Chapter 26 actual chapter not just an AN

**Ok. This one is very short and sweet. Basically, it's just the scene where Tessa gets her arm busted up and Selena contemplates her relationship with Optimus and Tessa. I'm not really sure about it myself. I think I kind of equate Tessa as a mixture of my eldest girl cousin and my best friend, who both act as sisters and mothers to me, so the relationship is kind of like that.**

**Now, I've already mentioned that my relationship with my dad is a bit fucked up as I've never met him, so I'm kind of entering weird territory with Optimus, as I have no real idea how a functioning father/daughter relationship works. In the end, I kind of settled for a mixture of the relationship between my Uncle, who is kind of like my acting godfather, and my cousin, whose kind of like my elder brother. They both find weird ways to get me to listen to them and they both have different things they do with me, so I tried to take the best parts of those relationships and mold them into this.**

**Another thing: THIS IS NOW MY MOST REVIEWED FIC! Thank you! Thank you all so much for surpassing the reviews from the fic I made during my Twilight Days. *Shivers* Those were dark days my friends, dark, terrible days, in which bad dialogue, character development, and logic were, apparently, contagious via reading.**

**Also, I want to make a major point right now: this fic is rated M. It may, at certain parts of the series, get very grim and very violent, especially when we really get into Selena's past. She had to do a lot of bad things to stay alive. Also, there may or may not be a lemon later on in this series. I don't know that much about that, seeing as I got my first kiss like a month ago. If it does, though, you will be told at the beginning of the chapter, right before it happens, and when it ends. I will give you lots of warning. **

**DO NOT COMPLAIN TO ME ABOUT THE CONTENT OR REPORT ME**

**If you don't like a story, don't read it. Other people may like it and that's their choice, but if you actually waste my and everyone else's time by trolling around looking for an excuse to delete something, that is your life, and it is a very pitiful one.**

**If this story is deleted, guess what? I've saved every freakin chapter, authors note and all! I will find somewhere else, probably deviantart, and I will post it there. Do not make me waste my time that way.**

**Okay, I think I'm done dealing with the idiots with no life, so on with the series that belongs purely to UlurNaga. And, possibly, Michale Bay, if he survives the fangirls lynching him.**

* * *

Selena so very wanted to scold Tessa, which, considering she'd been an acting mother since she was five, wasn't a big , she held herself back for three very good reasons: she was still years younger than Tessa, Lennox had already beaten her to the punch, and, most importantly, Optimus was going to spontaneously combust when he found out.

What had possessed her to do something as stupid as handle that kind of equipment without the proper gear? If Selena can change into proper gear under gunfire, Tessa can take a five minute break for her own safety.

She really liked Tessa, which was saying something because Selena didn't really like a lot of the people she knew. There was a very small circle, ranging from the Autobots, Lennox, Tessa, Epps, a couple of soldiers, her fellow Tankmates on a really good day, Serena and about three other people. That was it. Everyone else was liable to be shot if seen doing something suspicious, or if she was having a really bad day.

She couldn't really believe it. She and Tessa had become pretty good friends over the time Serena and Selena had been in the compound, and Selena suddenly found that the little grease monkey, Tessa's words, not Selena's, had moulded herself a permanent place in Selena's life as a friend, mild protector, and confident.

Still, the whole ordeal made a point very clear to Selena that she had forgotten before: Tessa, wonderful woman though she may be, was no soldier. She was still just a mechanic, which, on base, didn't really matter, but, in the field, could make a hell of a difference. She'd have to work on convincing Optimus to let her either take some self defence lessons or spar with . . . maybe not Selena exactly, but Serena, who was still a bit rough around the edges and was far less likely to lose control.

Silently, she sat in the background while Lennox continued to chew Tessa out, the sight almost reminding her of when she first got there and got an earful from Lennox, Tessa, and Epps, who she realised she hadn't seen in a while, about fighting with her sister.

Eventually, while Lennox was in the middle of a new tirade, Optimus and Epps just happened to come in on what could only be described to an outsider as the worst possible point of the conversation.

Tessa tried to play it off as nothing, which it so very was not, but Optimus wasn't fooled. Epps looked up at Optimus, and then over at her in concern, "If…if it was nothing to worry about…" he looked over at Lennox who was rubbing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his forefinger, "…then why is there a medical officer sitting next to you with your arm in his lap?"

Selena, speaking up for the first time since she had stumbled into the office to ask what was wrong with her friend, said in a slightly scolding tone, "Because someone decided to hack up their arm with a god forsaken power saw!

Epps' eyes widened in surprise, "What? But how; what about the protective gear?"

Tessa looked to Selena as if for help in playing the whole thing down and, had this been something else, she would have. Problem was, Tessa could have killed herself with the stunt she pulled today. Selena had done a lot or risky things in her short time on this planet, but she'd never done something that dangerous unless absolutely no other option was available. That, and it was Optimus. Who in their right mind is going to even try and lie to Optimus freaking Prime?

"I…might…not have been wearing it…" she murmured, cringing at how annoyed at herself the statement made her feel; at just how utterly stupid she had been.

"What?" Epps exclaimed worriedly. He looked up to see Optimus step right over the top of him, kneeling onto on leg so that he was eye level with Tessa, his expression one of concern and disturbance.

Selena, able to tell from a mile away that this was about to become something the two of them would have to talk about alone, went to her spot in the garage when she wasn't with Ironhide, who seemed to have become hard to find for a giant, loudmouthed robot, or Serena, who had gone off on a joyride with Sideswipe who, Selena knew, was not obeying the speed limit at all. She was fine with it for now, but, the minute she heard that he crashed with Serena, she was going to drive him of a fucking cliff.

Still, she smiled as Lennox asked Optimus to deal with the Tessa incident saying, "She listens to you."

Then again, everyone listened to the great and might Optimus. You had to. It was like there was a piece of your DNA specifically coded to make sure that you respected and obeyed him. Anyone who didn't, like that prick Galloway, was a mutated freak and should be banned from society.

Selena stopped herself.

Where had that come from? Selena wasn't a soldier, by many aspects. Serena maybe, but not Selena. She had too many issues with authority, which, when you spend as much time either bribing or dodging corrupt cops as she had, wasn't surprising. She was an assassin. Get in, do the job, get paid, move on. You don't like the job you're given? Fuck it. Just drop everything and move on. Take care of your own and don't worry about others. Those were the rules, she fallowing anyone into hell, even Optimus, was a sever break in the rules.

Then again, maybe she didn't like those rules so much after all.


	27. Chapter 27

**Does thank you describe how great full I am to UlurNaga. Naw, I don't think so. She did a lot of help with this chapter, especially the end.**

**I wanted to make a big point with this chapter: Selena and Ironhide are getting more used to each other and noticing things about the other that other people don't notice, not even Serena, which, in my opinion, is a really big deal. I would have a lot more to say, but I'm really tired, and even Lawyer Dave is asleep cause its 11:08 over here, so nighty night, everything goes to Ulur.**

* * *

Tessa was never going to get out of her stitches. Every time you thought she could make it, she'd do something strenuous and they'd fall apart at the seems. Selena eventually began to feel sorry for poor Prime, who was trying so desperately to keep her in one piece.

Meanwhile, she was still trying to deal with Ironhide.

He said he understood why she had done what she did when she went to see her father, but, lately, he was more and more quiet, studying her from afar, like either an attentive boyfriend or a creepy stalker; Selena wasn't really sure which one to settle on just yet.

It was so odd, and almost worrisome, the way he would look at her with this look in his eyes, as if he were trying to figure part of her out by mentally taking her apart any putting her back together again. No one ever tried to understand her. They either avoided her, or they just wrote the whole thing off as a Selena-thing. Even Serena just kind of shook her head from time to time and decided that she would never understand. Ironhide was the first tot try.

Something about that made her very worried.

* * *

Ironhide wasn't daft. Not in the least. His ability to think on his feet and read people came easily to him, but, lately, he was confused.

Something just wasn't right.

It had been a random thought that had slipped into his processors when someone had mentioned that glitch Michael, who was still very much hurt by Selena's actions that day. It was stochastic at best, but he had to wonder - why had Selena let him go?

From everything he knew about her, she should have killed I'm for his actions. She wasn't one to think with her emotions in a time like that. After her father, he knew she would have, at least, hesitated, but he wasn't a fool, as already said. Someone hurt Serena, and, by all rights, Selena's maternal instincts should have kicked in and ordered her to eliminate the threat. Because of everything shed been through, Selena had a survival mode stronger than any other he'd ever seen and a protective streak belonging to a cybertronian, so she shouldn't have just let the glitch go. It just wasn't like her.

He was surprised by his thought process. He hadn't questioned it when it had happened because he was so relieved she was alive, and, afterward, he tried as hard as he could to keep is mind far far away from that day but, now that the thought was there, he couldn't get rid of it.

"Ok," Selena said, opening his door and climbing into the passenger seat. "I've had it." she glared at the mirror in the night, the lights from the house she and her sister were staying in dimming as the large mech drove away. "Just what is going on with you? You're acting like a creeper, and, no pun intended, it's creeping me out!" Her face softened. "You're making me worried."

We're Ironhide a human, he would have sighed. Now he felt guilty. He hadn't meant to worry her, not when she was still getting over the ordeal with her father and the occasional press army that showed up at her house. Six time she had called him and Sideswipe to come and get her and Serena as they couldn't stay in the house for fear of them breaking in.

"Why did you let Michael live?" he blurted out. Slag it! He hadn't meant to ask her in the end.

He felt her stiffen at his words. "I told you, he was a sad, sad man. Not some rabid dog."

He studied her carefully, and, in the end, noticed the subtle twitching of the ring finger on her right hand. The movement was so small and quick that few humans would have ever noticed it, but he had noticed it a long time ago. It was her, as humans called it, tell. "You're lying," he said.

Selena stiffened even more, proving him right. She was lying to him! About why she didn't kill a man! Was it because she still loved him? Was it because she was hoping he would come to his senses and then come back to her? Would she leave him for her? He tried not to be angry at her lies, he tried to keep calm, but the rage at the idea of her lying to I'm after everything they had gone through was taking control.

She signed and eventually slumped over in her seat dropping her head into her hands. "It's complicated," she whispered out eventually. She was fighting back the anger, trying desperately to keep calm. She didn't want to fight with Ironhide about this. She didn't want to fight with him at all, but he was pushing too far too soon, and her defenses were demanding to be raised, with or without her permission.

"Nothing," Ironhide growled, "Nothing in this world or at world is worth lying to the others. Worth lying to me!"

"What did you want me to do?" she demanded, her hackles raised by his tone. She didn't answer to soldiers. She had made that rule long ago, and had only bent it since. "Did you want me to enjoy his suffering? Did you want me to blast his brains all over myself and Serena? Would that make you feel better?"

"What would make me feel better is if you would actually trust something besides the tiny voice in your head that had to have told you it was a good idea to lie to me!"

"You don't need to know about this!" she screamed. "You really don't. Not you, not Prime, and, especially, not Serena! You wanna know why I let him live?" she asked, her face contorted angrily with rage. "Do you really? Because I don't think you do. I don't think you can take that part of me. None of you can."

"Try me, Tiny," he ordered. "I'm centuries old. I doubt anything you say-"

"It's his punishment," she shouted, causing him to stop. The holoform he had produced earlier looked on in shock as the strong woman before him curled into a small ball in her seat, her head once again between her knees as her hands fought to curl her spin further inwards to hide from the world.

In that moment, every doubt and fear that had fueled his rage vanished, leaving only a crippling need to help her in any way he could. Still not used to human customs, he quickly searched the Internet for suggestions on comforting femmes on this planet. After reading through multiple suggestions, he felt a slight comfort in the fact that human mechs were as confused on how to deal with human women as he was.

Still, he had noticed that she reacted best to his touch since she'd admitted why she was more inclined to avoid the holoform, and he decided that holding her as he had after her nightmares was the best he could do. Carefully unbuckling her seat belt and maneuvering it off of her, he lifted her, still curled into a ball, into his lap, trying to be as gentle as possible.

"Take your time, Selena," he ordered, running his hands from the top of her head, through her hair. "We've got all night."

It was a while before she had unfurled from her ball to rest her face on his chest and even longer before she wrapped her own arms around his neck, one hand rubbing circles into the holoform's skin and another stroking the leather of the seat.

"He tried to hurt her," she whispered. "For years, he played me like a fool and then he has the balls to try and hurt her? No. He knows better. He knew I wasn't just going to kill him."

"Why?" Ironhide asked, desperate to see into her mind. "If you're so angry at him, if you want him to pay so much, why let him live."

"Because I didn't want him to just pay," she explained, her voice muffled as she pressed it into his chest. "I wanted him to suffer like I was, and he couldn't do that if he was dead. At least, that's what I think, or maybe it's because I'm such a bitter bitch I wanted to watch."

"Stop it," Ironhide ordered. "We've been over this. You did what you thought you had to."

"Not this time," she argued, though her voice was small and didn't have any bite to it. "I've done some bad things in my life. I've killed important people, people with families, and just walked away, I've stolen food from starving people, and I've more red in my ledger than any other kid who ever made it out of that facility, but never, in my life, have I been so cruel to anyone as I was when I did that to Michael. I didn't have to go that far, but I did because I was bitter."

"You were hurt."

"There's a difference?" she asked, looking at him for the first time.

He took her face into his hands, which were so rough and hardened that they looked out of place framing her delicate face. "When you're hurt, your automatic reaction is to hurt the person back the same way they hurt you. Believe me. I know." And he did. He had been hurt after Soundwave had killed Chromia all those years ago, even to him, but the hurt had faded, just as he knew hers would as well.

Selena smiled, feeling better. Maybe one day, far, far away, she'd realize that getting argumentative and defensive with Ironhide wasn't going to go as well as it usually did with others. He just knew her too well. "Don't tell the others," she said, putting her head on his chest and listening to the thrum of the energon in his veins. "I don't want to rehash this again."

"They will figure it out eventually," he warned.

"I know, but I've found that, around you lot, not running head first into the angst is much more fun."


	28. Chapter 28

**Oh my god, I am so sorry! How long have I been gone? I got to school, started taking my first two college - level classes (I'm a junior in high school, but they let you take college level Chemistry, History, and English for college class credits here), I just started driving, and I've got issues with my boyfriend, so things were a little hectic.**

**Lucky for you guys, though, my teacher was, apparently, looking out for you. She told us to write a short scene with a small bit of description at the beginning and the rest had to be told through character dialogue. I heard that and automatically thought of this, so thank miss Hardegree very much.**

* * *

Of all the stupid things she had agreed to do in the name of her messed up family, though she used the term so loosely she was surprised it didn't fall off, this had to take the cake as the stupidest thing she had ever done.

"I mentioned that this is a stupid idea, didn't I?" she asked, climbing the side of the apartment as she spoke into the tiny microphone next to her mouth. She wasn't actually doing any spy work, so it was fine. " I mean, I was offered a free night on the town with free food and drinks. Did I mention it was free?"

"Often, Selena," Daryl moaned. He loved his little sister, though he'd never call her that to her face, to death, as much as an assassin could, but she was not in her groove. Too much time around those fancy pansy soldiers had made her a bit squishy on the edges. "Look, you can meet up with whatever boy toy you've got waiting when we get Shane back."

"Wait, Shane?" Selena asked carefully, and Daryl nearly beat himself for the slip up. "I'm risking my fucking neck for Shane. No way, fuck that shit." She would have leapt off the roof she'd just gotten on, had Daryl not warned her.

"Too late now, you've got the guards right below you. Feel like helping a brother out?"

Selena sighed. All she'd wanted was to go on a date with Ironhide. Her first date with Ironhide. She'd dressed up nice too. With Tessa in tow, she and Selena had gone through the mall to get date-appropriate but able-to-fight-in clothes, and she'd come out with a pair of tight, black leather pants, a green tube top, and a warm, black, jean jacket. She'd actually put time and effort into her outfit, and, as soon as she'd been dressed, Daryl had come bursting through, saying there was a breach he needed her help with.

"I'm going to kick both your asses for this," she said, dropping down right onto one of the guards. It wasn't hard enough to kill him, just to knock him out. "Hola," she whispered, kicking a nearby brick into the air and sending it straight towards the other guards head. Again, not enough to kill, just to give I'm a really bad headache when he woke up. "You're In the clear," she told Daryl, knowing he was already making his way towards wherever that idiot, Shane, was, "GenTech firewalls down, taking the security system with, but you've only got about five minutes."

"Only five!"

"Do I look like Ford, Hardison, or Parker to you?" she barked. She remembered those lot. They were a pretty good group.

"For Christ's sake."

"You asked for a window; I gave you a window!"

"I asked for a window, not a two inch hole!"

"Five minutes," Shane's voice sounded. "Really, Selene. That's all you got."

"If those five, now two, minutes bother you two so much, maybe I should take them away and turn the security back on!"

"NO!"

"Of all the things I thought you did on your nights off, Tiny, this was not it."

Selena did a double take. "Ironhide? Just - How - When did you-"

"Wow, a speechless you, I never thought I'd see the day."

"How exactly did you get onto our frequency?"

"AND WHO ARE YOU!"

"Both of you shut up! That wouldn't happen to be your truck at the corner of the block, would it, Blender."

"Someone's got to look after you."

"In other words, Serena sent you to look after me."

"Can you two have your lover's spat another time?" Shane asked as they came out of the door.

"Bite me."

"Just get in."

"Why is the Topkick talking?"

"Just do it, Shane."

"STOP!"

"Shit, they followed us!"

"Blender, please!"

"You owe me, Tiny."

"Anything you want!"

"Damnit, Daryl! Don't go off promising me to a disembodied voice!"

"I want that date you missed!"

"TAKE HER!" Shane said, "JUST DRIVE!"


	29. Chapter 29

**I'm really sorry about this. A lot of shit is going down in my house because, instead of making ALL A's, I'm screwing up in ONE class, while getting high 90's in everything else because I've been busting my flicking ass off, thank you very much, but my mom is taking my iPad anyways, so I will have NO chance to update for a while. Really sorry.**


	30. Chapter 30

**This is a relatively short chapter, but I got it out. Thanks for all the support you guys! Just FYI, the grade my mom was freaking out over was a 71. She was actually supposed to give it to me the next day because, with a retest, a new quiz, and a shitload of extra credit, I raised that grade 20 GODDAMN POINTS! But she said she'd believe it when she saw it.**

**This story is split into two mentalities and times, so things may be a little weird. Just warning. Again, I've started my first two college classes, I'm in Girl's Choir, and I'm doing a solo in Orchestra on my violin soon. Things are a little hectic, so chapters are going to be spread a little thin. Also. I've started another kind of spin off for the avengers (it has no name yet) based off of psychollama's Down The Rabbit Hole on AO3, which, I know, I shouldn't have done when I knew I had stuff to do here, but it was sooooooo gooooooood! And the little plot bunnies wouldn't leave me alone! See *holds up tiny plot bunny* Bob just wanted to play!**

**Lawyer Dave wishes for me to remind you that, despite my claims, everything does not belong to UlurNaga, who is still the most awesome writer on this site, but to Michael Bay. I would like to remind him that I control this world, not him. Thereby, I BANISH YOU TO THE BOG! (Brownie Points to anyone who gets the reference)**

* * *

Had Selena known where Tessa and the others were holding their group date, she would have said no a thousand times until the giant Topkick got it. "Dammit, Ironhide," she said, frowning as he pulled into the parking lot, "Do you have any idea how bad a bar is when it comes to safety?"

The holoform, now in a swanky, black, button-up shirt and a pair of very nice, black pants, raised an eyebrow. "Lennox already checked up on it, as did Prime and I." He smiled, understanding, as he helped her out of the truck. The door closed and she found herself pinned quite firmly between the holoform and the bot. "Don't think you can get out of this, Tiny," he whispered, bringing his lips right next to her ear. "Prime could fry me tomorrow for helping you and those strangers-"

Selena stuttered, her brain to fried by his proximity to think straight. "W-We could have figured something out."

She could FEEL him smirk against her skin. "-so I think you owe me a few dances and a nice date in return, don't you?" The smile he sent her was so disarming, so roguish, so completely Ironhide, that Selena found herself helplessly nodding in helpless agreement. "Good," he growled, pulling her into the crowded bar where everyone was waiting.

* * *

She had been in several bars before, all before she turned twenty one and all to put a bullet (or a knife, or a piece of broken chair, or a broken glass bottle, or a . . .) in someone. She'd hated them all those years ago, and she still hated them. The crowed was too big to single people out as dangerous, although most of the men were either prowling for something a bit easier to find than a useful mark or drunk off their asses and complaining about their lives back home.

"You're supposed to dance," Tessa suggested. Selena smiled.

"And you're supposed to let the guy in," she fired back, a playful smile on her lips.

The second she had appeared before the group, they had flown into a frenzy, regaling her with the story of poor Optimus's attempt at being romantic, which had, to the leader's horror, had ended with a door slammed into his face and a hyperventilating Tessa, who had been so embarrassed about her outfit, the first dress Selena could ever remember seeing her in, that she couldn't look the poor bot in the eye.

"What happened tonight, anyways?" Tessa asked. "You were so hyped up to go on this date, and then you disappeared and came back looking like Ironhide was pulling you into hell."

Selena laughed at the analogy. She'd seen hell, and, she had to admit, the bar was close, but not quite. "Some old friends called in to collect a favour from me that I owed them. Ironhide wound up bailing us out, and I severely dislike small, crowded spaces."

Tessa smiled. "He just wants to make sure you're okay," she reassured the younger girl. "You know how he is when you just disappear like that."

While everyone on base had become accustomed to the older of the two girls disappearing, sometimes for days at a time, to deal with issues from her former life, the large bot had still shown his lack of appreciation for the whole thing every time, always declaring that, next time, he'd catch her before she got to far and drag her back home.

He hadn't managed it yet.

"I didn't get that far," Selena complained. "I was just down the road."

"You were gone from his sight," Tessa countered. "Doing something presumably dangerous with people he doesn't trust to watch your back. Let the man worry, will you."

"Yeah, sweetheart," a man said, strolling up to them. "Let him worry a little." The smile he sent the two women would have made any other woman swoon, but the two of them, much more used to far more persuading men, had merely frowned and raised their eyebrows. "So, what's your name, and what will it take to convince you to ditch whatever their names are, for a hunk of -"

Selena was far from impressed. "I know how to break your neck in five different places in sixteen different ways, your wrist in four different places six different ways, and your femur in twelve different places in twenty two different ways. Back away slowly and go pick another conquest Casanova."

The man, now completely terrified, backed away slowly. "Easy, Tiger," he said, holding his hands up in a completely useless gesture. "I'm leavin'. I'm leavin'." Faster than Tessa wold have thought possible, the man bolted away from the two.

A pair of arms wrapped themselves around Selena's back. "I was told," Ironhide said, "That chasing the men away from you was my job."

Selena smiled. "You can still scare him off," she pointed out. "He's still staring at me anyways."

A furious burst happened in his Spark, the organ demanding he go over to the man and gouge his eyes out to make sure he would never be able to remember what his -

He stopped the thought right there. Selena was one of the most independent femmes he had ever met of any species. He knew she wouldn't take being claimed very well. Still, his Spark wanted something to be done about the little glitch who thought he was good enough for her.

How wrong he was.

"I'll be right back," he said, squeezing her once before grabbing Prime. "There was a small . . . incident," he told the Prime.

The holoform's brow crinkled with worry and frowned. "What kind of an incident?" He asked.

Ironhide nodded sharply to the man, still watching both of their dates dance on the floor. "That kind."

Optimus frowned as well. He wasn't jealous, he knew such a slimy man could never catch his Tessa's attention, but he was infuriated. How dare this man leer at her in such a way? "I believe," the bot said, "that we need to have a nice conversation with this man."

Ironhide smirked, cracking his knuckles. "Just what I was thinking."

The leader noticed the tone of his weapons specialist's voice and immediately snapped back to reality. "Easy, old friend," he ordered, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder. "There's no need for violence." He followed the man's gaze and saw that he was looking directly at Tessa's aft. "Not much of it, anyways."


	31. Chapter 31 Important Message About Updat

**The thing, I've just recently learned, that really sucks about being a teenager: your heart gets broken. Pretty badly the first time, it seems.**

**After a terrible debacle with my last "boyfriend", who was a friend I kissed once, I finally met a guy I liked, and my friends liked him, and everything seemed awesome, seeing as how he still seemed to like my despite a small age difference, and I thought, 'Hey, I actually knell for a decent guy this time instead of some ass hole who will just put me and my friends down all the time!'**

**He just texted me to tell me that he has a girlfriend and that he still wants to be with her.**

**I'm so very not in the right place to do ANY kind of writing right now because this is coming on top of shakey grades in my precal class, two upcoming concerts for two different classes, my first college midterms, a HUGE essay in my college English class, issues with my great grandmother's physical and mental health, and me trying to get over some very deeply ropted scars that this whole thing has just torn open.**

**I'm really sorry for being selfish like this, but something has to cave, and, for now, its got to be this story. I'm not ending it forever, the story shuts isn't over yet, but you're not going to hear from me for a LONG time until a lot of my issues have been dealt with. Or until I stop crying long enough to breath. Either one. **

**Again, I'm very sorry for being selfish like this, but I just need time to deal owlish other stuff, and I don't want you guys to be waiting for a new chapter when I can't make one just yet.**


	32. Chapter 32 WAZ UP!

**I'm back bitches! **

**That's right, I'm back with a newfound energy and a shitload of curse words and ideas!**

**Thank you guys for being so patient with me, and by guys, I mean girls, because I don't think I'm all that ready to be nice to men just yet. Just ask Lawyer Dave. Poor soul came for the skit and, well, . . . I don't think he'll get over the shock anytime soon,**

**I will admit, this is a small filler chapter, but its something, so just smile and be happy that I'm back. I was a little mean to Ironhide but . . . Naw, I don't feel bad about it**.

* * *

Selena frowned at the highway as it flashed by, lit only by Ironhide's headlights. She had lost track of him and Prime for a few moments after the debacle with that perv, but, according to Shane and Daryl, who popped in just to say bye and thanks, he was moaning and groaning out in an alley by the club. Something about stupid boyfriends and chicks. Somehow, she doubted that the two were unrelated.

The saddest part: she wasn't even angry that they beat him up. Not in the least. She thought they did humanity a favor. What did piss her off, though, was the fact that they felt she had to be protected like some goddamn damsel in distress! She was an assassin, not a child. She could have handled anything some low-rate rapist threw at her easily. He was far from a con, and she had taken her fair share of them down.

She let her scowl deepen angrily as she glowered at the scenery. Stupid, overprotective Autobots.

* * *

Ironhide was getting very good at telling when his femme -he was starting to give up on the idea of not considering her his; he just wouldn't mention it to her- was irritated with him, and he was pretty sure she was now.

He and Prime hadn't really hurt the glitch. It was mostly just Ironhide, but, in his defense, the fool had been staring at an aft that wasn't his to stare at, and someone had to tell him just that.

So he did.

And now Selena, for some reason, was angry with him, and he didn't know how to make it better.

Finally he pulled into a special garage she'd had built on their property just for any visiting Autobots (she hadn't really take to getting so much money, but she was glad to use it for them) and formed a holoform in front of her. Even if she never admitted it, he knew she was always trying to figure out where exactly to look when she was speaking to his alt mode. It wasn't because she felt awkward about it. She just wanted to be able to look him in the eye when she spoke.

"Alright," he grumbled, pulling her into a hug (more to make sure that she couldn't hit his holoform when she blew her gasket than to comfort her). "What did I do this time?"

Selena knew that any girl would have been furious and pointed out that, if he needed to be told what he did, he wasn't nearly sorry enough, but that was stupid because no girl would have been mad at him for what he did. If anything, they would have loved to be protected by him in all his manly muscles and his gorgeous . . .

Digressing.

They would have been happy. She was not.

"I'm not glass Ironhide," she said eventually, her voice even. "When you treat someone like glass, you keep them from getting strong. I can't afford not to be strong."

"I know," he answered, sure this had something to do with his beating, though he had no idea how she knew. "But you are . . . special. You and Tessa both. We have to protect you. It's in our hardware."

"I know that," Selena said, pulling him closer. "That's why I'm trying really hard not to be mad at you, but I'm failing greatly."

"Then be angry with me," Ironhide asked. "Argue and banter with me and then smile." He pulled back and lifted her chin to look at his face. "Don't mar such a beautiful face with a scowl."

Selena knew it was wrong. She knew she shouldn't do it, but the snort escaped anyways.

"I'm sorry," she claimed, laughing hysterically. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh but . . . God, you sound like some kind of Don Juan, and FYI, he is not someone you should aspire to be."

Ironhide frowned. That was the last damn time he was trusting that particular website for help.


	33. Chapter 33 I HAVE RETURNED!

**Hi everyone, I'm back. I know I've been gone a while, but there is a reasonable explanation for that: music students are competitive. I don't care how lazy you are in that classroom, the second you hear that you have to compete with another school, one that you hate, for anything, you decide to crush that school's skull beneath your heel and laugh hysterically as they beg for your mercy!**

**Or maybe that's just me.**

**Case in point, I had Choir All Region, Orchestra All Region, Orchestra Solo and Ensemble (which I wasn't allowed to go to in the end, despite my hard work because I had only been playing for half a year but I'm a junior), Choir Solo and Ensemble (On which I made a 2 out of 5 despite some minor rhythm screw ups), and I'm not practicing for both my Choir and Orcestra Contests (one of which is the Friday before Spring Break, the second of which is the Friday after) and several minor Concerts that we were never told about.**

**Yeah, I've been busy.**

**I've also been revising and editing my original story, which I'm going to start posting when I find a website to post it on, or until I finish and publish it as an e book. All in all, its been pretty eventful. Also, I'm just not sure where exactly I'm going to take these characters, as I've done a lot of growing as a writer since I stared the series, and I want to do this right, so I'm not going to be posting these chapters as quickly as I used to because I'm trying to go for quality as opposed to quantity now. The story isn't over, and I'm sure it never will be. This'll always be where I got to when things get rough and I need to get away from life for a bit.**

**But I feel thanks are in order, for the reviewers who stood by me when I had my issues, who gave me confidence and advice when I needed it, and are a constant source of support for whenever I feel a little less than myself.**

**Another thanks is owed to UlurNaga, for her astounding writing which most of us fallow. If not all. You've always been ready to help lend a hand whenever writers block got in the way, and you've always been generous with your own thoughts and material, and for that and so much more, I'm greatful.**

**Whew. Now that that's out of the way, this is a small ficlet that I wrote in my head while sitting in a school bathroom scrubbing gum off the back of my pants (but I won't rant on that). It's just basically the idea of 'what do Serena and Selena do on the internet?' There are mentions here of Team Four Stars "Bardock: The Super Sayan", the first two memes I ever saw, : "The Drugar are Training" and "Moment of Silence for Our Brother in the Friend Zone", and Dose of Buckly (who actually does make some pretty good points, even if he's a bit of an asshole sometimes).**

Selena laughed hysterically, clutching her stomach as she rolled off the couch, completely unable to keep herself upright. "Dear Primus," Ironhide whispered, staring at the computer screen with a mixture of shock and awe. Sideswipe sat next to him as equally perplexed at both the video and the sisters' reaction to it. As Selena fell off the couch, not even trying to right herself, Serena had tipped to the side and was shaking in his lap as the barks of laughter rippled through her.

Selena and Ironhide had come home after a night out with the others, and Sideswipe could, automatically, tell something had happened. Serena had happily offered to let them join Serena and Sideswipe while watching Dragon Ball Z. The two sisters had gotten the both the bots obsessed with the anime. Apparently, it was one of the only cartoons they could find on TV in English when they were growing up, and insisted that everyone they knew be as fanatical as they were.

Recently, they had found an "abridged" version, where the voices of the original characters had been dubbed over. On the screen was a special episode of "The Adventures of Bardock", which was one of the funnier series, but they couldn't understand it.

"Why is it so funny?" Sideswipe asked? "He just said he would eat the poor thing!"

Selena knew Sideswipe had no idea why they were laughing so hard, none of the autobots got any innuendo, especially since this was, probably, not even meant to be innuendo, but they couldn't seem to stop.

"Selena?" Ironhide asked, pulling her back onto the couch as she began to breath properly again. "You're not breathing."

"I-I know," she answered. "I-I'll b-be fi-fine in a mi-minute."

"There is nothing about this whole scenario that doesn't make me so disgusted I want to violently vomit out my own internal organs," said the voice actor for Bardock, the voice coming from the screen after Serena's flailing had managed to take the video back to the beginning. "I despised you both so intensely that I can't tell if my vision is blurry from my near-death experience or from my unforgiving rage. If allowed, once I am back to full health, I will gut you with an honest-to-god smile on my face...and then proceed to paint the home I build with your bodies with your very blood."

". . . You hear that, Twopock? You made a friend!"

Both sisters began falling over again, laughing hysterically.

"So that's why they're always stronger!" Sideswipe screamed, glaring at the meme in front of him.

"Yep," Serena smirked. "While you were _so_ busy trying to collect all those dragon souls and scales for that armor of yours, the Drugar were training."

"It's your own fault, speedy," Ironhide said, trying not to laugh.

"What the hell did we just see?" Selena asked, staring at the screen in front of her with a horrified look on her face.

"I feel like I've lost a piece of my innocence," Serena whispered, a similar emotion on her own face.

"Who in the Pit _made _that?" Ironhide asked, disturbed.

"I think we should be more worried for the mental health of the one who _thought _of it," Sideswipe argued, wrapping a comforting arm around Serena as she shivered.

"I've got to say something about this," Selena said, moving the laptop to her lap, where only Ironhide, who she was sitting on, could see the small, black words in the little box:

**I think we found the dark place in YouTube we were forewarned about.**

"I don't get it," Sideswipe said for the fifth time that night. "Why is it sad that he knows a friend for her to date?"

Both girls looked at the other bot in shock. "He's your boyfriend, Serena," Selena said, looking at her sister. "You explain."

"He's right," Ironhide said. "They should be happy she may find someone who will love her."

Selena just looked at him in shock. "You're telling me that in the entire time you guys have been to earth, neither of you have ever heard of the term 'Friend Zoned'?"

"Nope."

"You have got to be kidding me," Selena said, glaring at the screen with a furious look on her face. "You have absolutely got to be kidding me!"

Serena, who had left to get more popcorn, came into the room, Sideswipe at her side. "What? What happened?"

Selena snarled at the computer. "Akin's is still in the running."

"_Are you fucking kidding me?"_ Serena screeched, racing over to the computer to stare at the screen which showed that, yes, the man in question was still on the list for a senate seat.

"What's your problem?" Ironhide asked, staring at the screen as well. "You hate all politicians. What makes this one any different?"

Serena sighed. "I'll let Buckley explain."


End file.
